Word.ws English Dictionary

at bottom

at bottom prepositional phrase: really, basically, fundamentally.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Really, basically, fundamentally.
    • They concerted Matters, and all at once fell to selling off their Stock, giving out daily Reports that they would be no longer concern'd, that it was a losing Trade, that the Fund at bottom was good for nothing.1705, Daniel Defoe, The Consolidator: or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions From the World in the Moon
    • I know you are a good man at bottom.1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 16, in Treasure Island

Examples of at bottom in a sentence

  • "Tess is queer." "But she's tractable at bottom.1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, volume 1, London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., page 45:
  • At bottom I supposed that he had mistaken another book for mine.1907 July 5, Mark Twain, chapter 23, in Chapters from My Autobiography:
  • As the New Year opened, the survival of Western democracy rested, at bottom, on the case the U.S. would make for it.1947 January 6, “The 80th Congress”, in Time, retrieved 26 Jun 2015:
  • At bottom, he does not accept any authority higher than himself.2015 June 20, Michael Lewis, “Harvard Admissions Needs ‘Moneyball for Life’”, in New York Times, retrieved 26 Jun 2015:

Synonyms of at bottom

Questions about at bottom

What does at bottom mean?
At bottom means really, basically, fundamentally.
How do you use at bottom in a sentence?
"Tess is queer." "But she's tractable at bottom.
What part of speech is at bottom?
At bottom is a prepositional phrase.

Words near at bottom in the dictionary

  1. at bar
  2. at bat
  3. at bats
  4. at bay
  5. at best
  6. at bottom
  7. at call
  8. at church every time the doors are open
  9. at church every time the doors swing open
  10. at command
  11. at cost

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: at bottom (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-at bottom.ogg.

Cite this entry: “at bottom.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/at_bottom. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.