Link Centre Dictionary

some

UK/sʌm/ US/sɐm/ very common informal
adjective (5) adverb (1)

adjective

1.

quantifier; used with either mass nouns or plural count nouns to indicate an unspecified number or quantity

  • “have some milk”
  • “some roses were still blooming”
  • “having some friends over”
  • “some apples”
  • “some paper”
Antonyms
Similar
2.

unknown or unspecified

  • “some lunatic drove into my car”
  • “some man telephoned while you were out”
  • “some day my prince will come”
  • “some enchanted evening”
Similar
3.

relatively many but unspecified in number

  • “they were here for some weeks”
  • “we did not meet again for some years”
Similar
4.

remarkable

  • “that was some party”
  • “she is some skier”
Similar
5.

relatively much but unspecified in amount or extent

  • “we talked for some time”
  • “he was still some distance away”
Similar

adverb

1.

(of quantities) imprecise but fairly close to correct

  • “lasted approximately an hour”
  • “in just about a minute”
  • “he”
  • “;”
  • “ve had about all I can stand”
  • “we meet about once a month”
  • “some forty people came”
  • “weighs around a hundred pounds”
  • “roughly $3,000”
  • “holds 3 gallons, more or less”
  • “20 or so people were at the party”
Synonyms

Origin

From Middle English som, sum, from Old English sum (“some, a certain one”), from Proto-West Germanic *sum, from Proto-Germanic *sumaz (“some, a certain one”), from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one, whole”). Cognate Scots sum, some (“some”), North Frisian som, sam, säm (“some”), West Frisian sommige, somlike (“some”), dialectal Dutch som, saom (“some”), standard Dutch sommige (“some”), Low German somige (“some”), German dialectal summige (“some”), Danish somme (“some”), Swedish somlig (“some”), Norwegian sum, som (“some”), Icelandic sumur (“some”), Gothic 𐍃𐌿𐌼𐍃 (sums, “one, someone”). More at same.

Phrases

  • all and some
  • and then some
  • at some point
  • bang some heads together
  • buy some time
  • by some distance
  • come get some
  • for some reason

Related words

Word family

See also

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.