almost
See also: álmost and Álmost
English
Alternative forms
- aulmos (Jamaican English)
Etymology
From Middle English [Term?], from Old English eallmǣst (“nearly all, almost, for the most part”), equivalent to al- (“all”) + most.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈɔːɫ.məʊst/, (emphatic, utterance-final) /ɔːɫ.ˈməʊst/
- (colloquial, unaccented) IPA(key): /ˈɔː(l)məs/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈɔl.moʊst/, /ˈɑl.moʊst/, /ˈoʊ.moʊst/
Audio (US-Inland North) (file) Audio (US) (file)
- Hyphenation: al‧most
- Rhymes: -əʊst
Adverb
almost (not comparable)
- Very close to, but not quite.
- Synonym: (obsolete) environ
- Almost all people went there. (not all but very close to it)
- We almost missed the train. (not missed but very close to it)
- 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698:
- Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it merited.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 4293071:
- This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything. In a moment she had dropped to the level of a casual labourer.
- 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter IX, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, OCLC 483591931:
- Eustace gaped at him in amazement. When his urbanity dropped away from him, as now, he had an innocence of expression which was almost infantile. It was as if the world had never touched him at all.
- 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 23, page 19:
- In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […] The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.
- (mathematics) Up to, except for a negligible set (where negligible is not universally but contextually defined).
- almost all
- almost no
- (measure theory, probability theory) Up to a null set; except for a set of measure 0.
- almost everywhere
- almost nowhere
- almost certain
- almost sure
Synonyms
- (very close to, but not quite): nearly, nigh, well-nigh, near, close to, next to, practically, virtually, not yet, not
Derived terms
- almost all
- almost doesn't count
- almost everywhere
- almost prime
- almost standards mode
- almost surely
Translations
very close to
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(mathematics)
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(measure theory, probability theory)
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Noun
almost (plural almosts)
- (informal) Something or someone that doesn't quite make it.
- In all the submissions, they found four papers that were clearly worth publishing and another dozen almosts.
References
- almost at OneLook Dictionary Search
- almost in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
Anagrams
- Altoms, smalto, stomal