somewhat

«somewhat» in Mova's school dictionary: A little, to some degree, rather — not very much and not… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adverb; pronoun (rare, old: «somewhat of»)

meaning for a pupil

1) A little, to some degree, rather — not very much and not completely. tree →

2) (formal) Fairly; used to make a statement softer. tree →

sense in the lessons

It is a softening word: «somewhat tired» is less than «very tired». It is common in formal writing, reports and exams («the results were somewhat surprising»). In science it describes small changes: «the temperature rose somewhat». In maths word problems it means a small, not exact, amount, so it does not give a number. Phrases: «somewhat better», «somewhat surprised», «somewhat different».

examples

• I was somewhat tired after the long walk. tree →
• The test was somewhat harder than last week's. tree →
• The weather improved somewhat in the afternoon. tree →
• (formal) The results were somewhat unexpected. tree →
• The two pictures are somewhat different. tree →
• She felt somewhat better after a drink of water. tree →
• The price went up somewhat, but not much. tree →
• His story was somewhat hard to believe. tree →
• Yamato relaxed his hold somewhat and said. tree →

note

It is one word. It usually comes before an adjective or adverb («somewhat late») or after a verb («improved somewhat»). It means «a bit», not «something». In maths, «somewhat more» tells you only that the amount grew a little; you cannot work out an exact number from it.

In the corpora

• He said moreover: 'I have somewhat to say unto thee.' And she said: 'Say on.'

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «somewhat» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.