Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Greatest in number: won the most votes.
- adj. Greatest in amount, extent, or degree: has the most compassion.
- adj. In the greatest number of instances: Most fish have fins.
- n. The greatest amount or degree: She has the most to gain.
- n. Slang The greatest, best, or most exciting. Used with the: That party was the most!
- pro. The greatest part or number: Most of the town was destroyed. Most of the books were missing.
- adv. In or to the highest degree or extent. Used with many adjectives and adverbs to form the superlative degree: most honest; most impatiently.
- adv. Very: a most impressive piece of writing.
- adv. Informal Almost: Most everyone agrees.
- idiom. at (the) most At the maximum: We saw him for ten minutes at the most. She ran two miles at most.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Greatest in size or extent; largest: superlative of much or mickle in its original sense ‘great,’ ‘large.’
- Greatest in age; oldest.
- Greatest in rank, position, or importance; highest; chief.
- Greatest in amount, degree, or intensity: superlative of much.
- Greatest in number; numerous beyond others; amounting to a considerable majority: superlative of many: used before nouns in the plural.
- n. The greatest or greater number: in this sense plural.
- n. Greatest value, amount, or advantage; utmost extent, degree, or effect.
- In the greatest or highest or in a very great or high degree, quantity, or extent; mostly; chiefly; principally.
- Used before adjectives and adverbs to form a superlative phrase, as more is to form a comparative: as, most vile; most wicked; most illustrious; most rapidly. Like
more with comparatives, it was formerly often used superfluously with superlatives: thus, most boldest, dearest, heaviest, worst, etc. Seemore . - A double superlative suffix associated with -more, a comparative suffix, now taken as a suffixal form of most, as used in forming superlatives, as in foremost, hindmost, uppermost, utmost, inmost, topmost, etc. Compare -more.
Wiktionary
- Superlative form of much.
- adv. Superlative form of many.
- adv. Superlative form of much.
- adv. Forms the superlative of many adjectives.
- adv. To a great extent or degree; highly; very.
- n. uncountable The greatest amount.
- n. countable A record-setting amount.
GNU Webster's 1913
- Consisting of the greatest number or quantity; greater in number or quantity than all the rest; nearly all.
- Greatest in degree.
- obsolete Highest in rank; greatest.
- adv. In the greatest or highest degree.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. (superlative of `many' used with count nouns and often preceded by `the') quantifier meaning the greatest in number
- adv. (of actions or states) slightly short of or not quite accomplished; all but
- adv. very.
- adv. used to form the superlative
- adj. the superlative of `much' that can be used with mass nouns and is usually preceded by `the'; a quantifier meaning the greatest in amount or extent or degree
Etymologies
- From Old English mǣst, from Proto-Germanic. Cognate with Dutch meest, German meist, Swedish mest. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English mǣst, māst; . Adv., short for almost. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Anyone who edits Chinglish for a living, as I do, will recognize that very common most of ____ error for most___ or most of the ______.”
“The existance of a creator, or lack there of, is unprovable and rightly so, if there was proof there would be no need for faith so the most basic tenant of *most* theology is safe from contradiction.”
“Given Americas superior technology, it is reasonable to assume that if the US launched a preemptive nuclear or conventional attack on Iran, we would wipe out most of their nuclear facilities, although probably not all. former president and nuclear engineer, Jimmy Carter, observed most Iranian nuclear facilities are now spread over a wide area and buried deep underground.”
“The most prominent instance of this strategy is his embrace of an atomist matter theory as a ˜most likely hypothesis™.”
“The deliberate convictions of the most matured consideration I can give the subject, are, that the institution of slavery is a _most serious injury to the habits, manners and morals_ of our white population -- that it leads to sloth, indolence, dissipation, and vice.”
“And if we place more and most before other adverbs, the effect is the same; as, skilfully, _more_ skilfully, _most_ skilfully.”
“Walt Whitman as one of the most, if not _the most_, perfect example of whom we have any record of cosmic consciousness and its sublime effects upon the character and personality of the illumined one.”
“I have a strange feeling, my boy -- for once, I find myself unable to explain -- most odd, _most_ odd ... five hundredth birthday ....”
“Where the adjectives and adverbs have two or more syllables, most of them are compared by the use of the adverbs _more_ and _most_, or, if the comparison be a descending one, by the use of _less_ and _least_; as, _beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful_, and”
“Accordingly, not only is energy applauded, but that energy applauded most that _does most_.”
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘most’.
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EN - Glasgow stop list
Words to be replaced by a paragraph mark if you are after terms and MWEs.
yours, yourself, yet, your, without, you, within, will, yourselves, would, why, with and 291 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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Xuer's Words
real, xuer, china, shanghai, internet, readwrite, craigslist, google, delicious, flickr, douban, 37signals and 109 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
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Wordnik Words
Words that appear on the home page of Wordnik.
abaci, cabooleat, endomorphic, warfinger, varna, tautological, quesadillia, hub, oceanography, ken, ignimbrite, galactagogue and 110 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
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PirateIam's Words
this, site, is, the, most, useless, piece, of, crap, ever, created
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TT2 Lesson 13
magnificent, island, remote, major, land mass, archipeligo, consist, inhabit, inhabitant, inhabited, southernmost, Oahu and 82 more...
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homepage words
Wordnik, is, auric, cabooleat, ectomorphic, gorgeousness, the, most, iconoclasm, koi, obnubilation, hat and 10 more...
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slo: masc. nouns with -ôv- infix in d...
Many of these nouns also form the gen. sg. with -ú: dar, glas, grad, jez, mah, most, nos, pas, plaz, plod, rod, sad, sin (styl.), sled, smrad, strah, tat, trak, vrat, zid; other words that (somet...
glas, gozd, duh, grad, most, nos, dolg, dom, tram, top, rod, sin and 33 more...
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influx / movement
infusion, intromission, introduction, influence, power, inflow, influx, accession, concourse, accumulation, outlay, emigration and 28 more...
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My List
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try
Tweets
Looking for tweets for most.
vanishedone If by honeymoon you have in mind WeirdNet #2, then it looks like it. Nov 17, 2009
reesetee Did I miss the honeymoon? ;-) Nov 17, 2009
vanishedone The honeymoon is over already, isn't it? Nov 17, 2009
bilby Spamness. Nov 17, 2009
vanishedone But whatever does a commercial-looking link to a page about a dental product have to do with the word most...? Nov 17, 2009
stamm love Oct 20, 2009