nearly
part of speech
adverb
meaning for a pupil
1) Nearly means almost, but not completely. tree →
2) Nearly can mean that something almost happened but did not («I nearly fell»). tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths it is used with estimates and amounts close to a number («nearly 100» means a little less than 100). In everyday life and stories it tells about close calls and things that are almost finished or almost time («nearly ready», «nearly home», «nearly bedtime»). Phrases: «nearly always», «not nearly» (= not at all, far from).
examples
- It is nearly time for lunch. tree →
- I nearly missed the bus this morning. tree →
- We have nearly finished the jigsaw. tree →
- There were nearly 30 children at the party. tree →
- She nearly fell off the wall, so be careful. tree →
- My little brother is nearly five. tree →
- That is not nearly enough paint for the whole fence. tree →
- We are nearly home; I can see our street. tree →
- The merchant himself nearly went mad. tree →
note
Adverb: put it before the verb or before the number or word it changes. In maths «nearly 50» means a bit less than 50, never more (49 is nearly 50; 51 is not). «Not nearly» means «far from», a strong negative. Similar: «almost».
In the corpora
- Nearly 2000 years ago a volcano buried a Roman town and burned a library of scrolls to black lumps that nobody could open.
- Minimalism is art that uses very little, like simple shapes; whether a nearly empty work is deep or a con is argued.
- Plants grow mainly at the tips of their shoots and roots, and some bamboos can grow nearly a metre in a day.
- No real animal breathes fire; the bombardier beetle sprays a nearly boiling chemical mix from a tough chamber at attackers.
- Dumbo octopuses have fins that look like elephant ears, and they live deeper than any other known octopus, at nearly seven kilometres.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «nearly» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.