perhaps

adv
/pəˈhæps/UK/pɚˈhæps/US

Etymology

From Middle English perhappes, perhappous, variant of earlier perhap (“perhaps, possibly”), equivalent to per + hap (“chance, coincidence”) + -s, on model of Middle English parchaunce (modern perchance).

  1. inherited from parchaunce
  2. inherited from perhappes

Definitions

  1. Possibly.

    • Perhaps John will come over for dinner.
    • There was a perhaps credible witness.
    • He was seriously wounded, perhaps fatally.
  2. By chance.

    • […] will live until he dies perhaps, and then lie down in clover.
  3. An uncertainty.

    • I cannot conceive what atheism, or skepticism, or positivism could do for me now, with their negations, and endless and contradictory perhapses, and perhapses, and perhapses.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for perhaps. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA