Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adverb Nearly; almost.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Very nigh; very nearly; almost wholly or entirely. Also written as a single word and (more properly) as two words.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adverb Almost; nearly.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adverb
almost , verynearly
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adverb (of actions or states) slightly short of or not quite accomplished; all but
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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"Were he perfectly black, you could sit alongside him and not see him," Lloyd said; and I confess the illustration was apt enough to make me well-nigh convinced.
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In this he was partially blocked, but a dozen of the ` Frisco Reds were executed, and the group was well-nigh destroyed.
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Next day, before you get started, he's well-nigh unmanageable.
Chapter XI 2010
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She could make a meal of sun-dried fish or a bed in the snow; yet she teased them with tantalizing details of many-course dinners, and caused strange internal dissensions to arise at the mention of various quondam dishes which they had well-nigh forgotten.
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Heart-high, I say, my rapier entered Pasquini's side on the right, but it did not emerge, on the left, for, well-nigh through him, it met a rib (oh, man-killing is butcher's work!) with such a will that the forcing overbalanced him, so that he fell part backward and part sidewise to the ground.
Chapter 11 2010
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But the city folk constituted a new and terrible destructive force, the equilibrium was overthrown, and the poppies well-nigh perished.
The Golden Poppy 2010
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This is the well-nigh inevitable result of having free trade between a country with a very low savings rate and one with a very high one like China.
Ian Fletcher: Why Have Nations at All? The Case for Economic Borders Ian Fletcher 2011
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Eventually, without losing a single man, this unit of the Royal Navy systematically destroyed all French fortifications, more than one hundred heavy cannon, stretching about seventy miles from San Sebastián to Santander (except for the well-nigh impregnable Castro-Urdiales).
Archive 2009-03-01 2009
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This is the well-nigh inevitable result of having free trade between a country with a very low savings rate and one with a very high one like China.
Ian Fletcher: Why Have Nations at All? The Case for Economic Borders Ian Fletcher 2011
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Here the dogs were well-nigh useless, and both they and the men were tried excessively by the roughness of the way.
Chapter IV 2010
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