well-nigh
/ˌwɛlˈnaɪ/
well-nigh adverb: almost, nearly.
Adverb
well-nigh (not comparable)
- Almost, nearly.
- The ſame ſo ſore annoyed has the Knight, / That welnigh choked with the deadly ſtinke, / His forces faile, ne can no lenger fight.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 22, page 9
- The household cock had given his first summons, and the night was well nigh spent.1816, [Walter Scott], chapter III, in The Antiquary. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC...
- Synonyms:
- fornigh, just about, virtually, well-near, all but, almost, as good as, as near as makes no difference, close to, more or less
well-nigh meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada
well-nigh in Tamil
- கிட்டத்தட்ட
well-nigh in Malayalam
- nearly, almost, just about
- വളരെ, കണക്കിന്, ധാരാളം, തികവായിട്ടും, തികച്ചും, ഒട്ടുമുക്കാലും
well-nigh in Kannada
- ಬಹುಮಟ್ಟಿಗೆ, ಹೆಚ್ಚುಕಡಮೆ
Examples of well-nigh in a sentence
- Then I lay down, well-nigh dead for travail and trouble and terror, and slept without surcease till morning, […]1885, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, “[Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman] The Fifth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman....
- This is what makes off-hand testimony about the subjective identity of different sensations well-nigh worthless as a proof of the fact.1890, William James, “The Stream of Thought”, in The Principles of Psychology […] (American Science Series—Advanced Course), volume I, New...
- Derelict and well-nigh forgotten, Port Victoria now watches the great ships on the Medway—ships that might have berthed in its docks.1939 July, “Pertinent Paragraphs: Port Victoria”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 67:
Synonyms of well-nigh
- fornigh
- just about
- virtually
- well-near
- all but
- almost
- as good as
- as near as makes no difference
- close to
- more or less
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Origin of well-nigh
From Middle English wel-neigh (“physically close to; near in time to; almost, nearly; closely”) [and other forms], from Old English wel nēah, wel nēh, from wel (“well”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *welh₁- (“to choose; to want”)) + nēah, nēh (“close, near”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂neḱ- (“to attain, reach”)). Synchronically a univerbation of well (“completely, fully; to a significant degree”) + nigh (“close by, near”).
Words that rhyme with well-nigh
Questions about well-nigh
- What does well-nigh mean?
- Well-nigh means almost, nearly.
- What is well-nigh in Tamil?
- Well-nigh in Tamil is கிட்டத்தட்ட. See Well-nigh meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use well-nigh in a sentence?
- Then I lay down, well-nigh dead for travail and trouble and terror, and slept without surcease till morning, […]
- What part of speech is well-nigh?
- Well-nigh is an adverb.
- How do you pronounce well-nigh?
- Well-nigh is pronounced /ˌwɛlˈnaɪ/ (UK).
Words near well-nigh in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: well-nigh (page history and authors); well-nigh (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); well-nigh (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); well-nigh (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-well-nigh.wav.
Cite this entry: “well-nigh.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/well-nigh. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.