"all but" meaning in English

See all but in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Adverb

Head templates: {{en-adv|-}} all but (not comparable)
  1. Very nearly; everything short of. Most often precedes a verb or adjective. Tags: not-comparable Translations (very nearly): az qala (Azerbaijani), quasi (Catalan), gairebé (Catalan), 幾乎 (Chinese Mandarin), 几乎 (jīhū) (Chinese Mandarin), næsten (Danish), bijna (Dutch), welhaast (Dutch), preskaŭ (Esperanto), lähes (Finnish), melkein (Finnish), käytännössä (Finnish), miltei (Finnish), presque (French), plus ou moins (French), fast (German), quasi (Italian), praticamente (Italian), quasi del tutto (Italian), all'atto pratico (Italian), så godt som (Norwegian Bokmål), praktisk talt (Norwegian Bokmål), i det store og det hele (Norwegian Bokmål), nesten (Norwegian Bokmål), mer eller mindre (Norwegian Bokmål), prawie (Polish), praticamente (Portuguese), quase (Portuguese), почти́ (počtí) (Russian), takmer (Slovak), skoro (Slovak), casi (Spanish), praktiskt taget (Swedish), nära på (Swedish), snudd på (Swedish)
    Sense id: en-all_but-en-adv-Kdb~wh4u Disambiguation of 'very nearly': 98 2
  2. Everything except. Typically precedes a noun or noun phrase. Tags: not-comparable
    Sense id: en-all_but-en-adv-35nw~Nw8 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 20 80
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: almost, nearly, nigh on, all-but Related terms: all but dissertation, all but thesis

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for all but meaning in English (6.7kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "all but (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adv"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "46 54",
      "word": "all but dissertation"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "46 54",
      "word": "all but thesis"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The food is all but finished.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1977, George Lucas, Star Wars, spoken by Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), 20th Century Fox",
          "text": "A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. [...] Now the Jedi are all but extinct.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1979, The Boomtown Rats (lyrics and music), “Wind Chill Factor (Minus Zero)”, in The Fine Art of Surfacing",
          "text": "I practice nightly, I try to keep ahead / This art of surfacing is all but dead",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 September 28, Kenan Malik, “London Is Special, but Not That Special”, in New York Times, retrieved 2013-09-28",
          "text": "When the first wave of postwar immigrants arrived in Britain in the 1950s and ’60s, it was a period of rising wages, full employment, an expanding welfare state and strong trade unions. Today, Britain’s manufacturing base has all but disappeared, working-class communities have disintegrated, unions have been neutered and the welfare state has begun to crumble.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 November 11, Rory Houston, “Estonia 0-4 Republic of Ireland”, in RTE Sport",
          "text": "A stunning performance from the Republic of Ireland all but sealed progress to Euro 2012 as they crushed nine-man Estonia 4-0 in the first leg of the qualifying play-off tie in A Le Coq Arena in Tallinn.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 January 10, 'Industry Insider', “Success built on liberalisation and market freedom”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 69",
          "text": "The freight market has changed beyond all recognition from when RAIL was first published. Coal, the then-dominant traffic, has all but disappeared. Instead, maritime intermodal flows have shown steady growth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Very nearly; everything short of. Most often precedes a verb or adjective."
      ],
      "id": "en-all_but-en-adv-Kdb~wh4u",
      "links": [
        [
          "nearly",
          "nearly"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "az",
          "lang": "Azerbaijani",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "az qala"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "ca",
          "lang": "Catalan",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "quasi"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "ca",
          "lang": "Catalan",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "gairebé"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "幾乎"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "jīhū",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "几乎"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "næsten"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "bijna"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "welhaast"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "eo",
          "lang": "Esperanto",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "preskaŭ"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "lähes"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "melkein"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "käytännössä"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "miltei"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "presque"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "plus ou moins"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "fast"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "quasi"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "praticamente"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "quasi del tutto"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "all'atto pratico"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "så godt som"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "praktisk talt"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "i det store og det hele"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "nesten"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "nb",
          "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "mer eller mindre"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "prawie"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "praticamente"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "quase"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "počtí",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "почти́"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "sk",
          "lang": "Slovak",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "takmer"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "sk",
          "lang": "Slovak",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "skoro"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "casi"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "praktiskt taget"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "nära på"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "98 2",
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "very nearly",
          "word": "snudd på"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "20 80",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "All but three of the students skipped school the day of the parade.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 January 10, 'Industry Insider', “Success built on liberalisation and market freedom”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 69",
          "text": "In the event, higher sale proceeds were achieved by allowing EWS Railway to acquire all but Freightliner, which was sold as a management buy-out.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Everything except. Typically precedes a noun or noun phrase."
      ],
      "id": "en-all_but-en-adv-35nw~Nw8",
      "links": [
        [
          "except",
          "except"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "46 54",
      "word": "almost"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "46 54",
      "word": "nearly"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "46 54",
      "word": "nigh on"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "46 54",
      "word": "all-but"
    }
  ],
  "word": "all but"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English adverbs",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English uncomparable adverbs"
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "all but (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adv"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "all but dissertation"
    },
    {
      "word": "all but thesis"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "The food is all but finished.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1977, George Lucas, Star Wars, spoken by Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness), 20th Century Fox",
          "text": "A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. [...] Now the Jedi are all but extinct.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1979, The Boomtown Rats (lyrics and music), “Wind Chill Factor (Minus Zero)”, in The Fine Art of Surfacing",
          "text": "I practice nightly, I try to keep ahead / This art of surfacing is all but dead",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013 September 28, Kenan Malik, “London Is Special, but Not That Special”, in New York Times, retrieved 2013-09-28",
          "text": "When the first wave of postwar immigrants arrived in Britain in the 1950s and ’60s, it was a period of rising wages, full employment, an expanding welfare state and strong trade unions. Today, Britain’s manufacturing base has all but disappeared, working-class communities have disintegrated, unions have been neutered and the welfare state has begun to crumble.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 November 11, Rory Houston, “Estonia 0-4 Republic of Ireland”, in RTE Sport",
          "text": "A stunning performance from the Republic of Ireland all but sealed progress to Euro 2012 as they crushed nine-man Estonia 4-0 in the first leg of the qualifying play-off tie in A Le Coq Arena in Tallinn.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 January 10, 'Industry Insider', “Success built on liberalisation and market freedom”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 69",
          "text": "The freight market has changed beyond all recognition from when RAIL was first published. Coal, the then-dominant traffic, has all but disappeared. Instead, maritime intermodal flows have shown steady growth.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Very nearly; everything short of. Most often precedes a verb or adjective."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "nearly",
          "nearly"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "All but three of the students skipped school the day of the parade.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 January 10, 'Industry Insider', “Success built on liberalisation and market freedom”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 69",
          "text": "In the event, higher sale proceeds were achieved by allowing EWS Railway to acquire all but Freightliner, which was sold as a management buy-out.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Everything except. Typically precedes a noun or noun phrase."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "except",
          "except"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "almost"
    },
    {
      "word": "nearly"
    },
    {
      "word": "nigh on"
    },
    {
      "word": "all-but"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "az",
      "lang": "Azerbaijani",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "az qala"
    },
    {
      "code": "ca",
      "lang": "Catalan",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "quasi"
    },
    {
      "code": "ca",
      "lang": "Catalan",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "gairebé"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "幾乎"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "jīhū",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "几乎"
    },
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "næsten"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "bijna"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "welhaast"
    },
    {
      "code": "eo",
      "lang": "Esperanto",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "preskaŭ"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "lähes"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "melkein"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "käytännössä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "miltei"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "presque"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "plus ou moins"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "fast"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "quasi"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "praticamente"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "quasi del tutto"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "all'atto pratico"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "så godt som"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "praktisk talt"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "i det store og det hele"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "nesten"
    },
    {
      "code": "nb",
      "lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "mer eller mindre"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "prawie"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "praticamente"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "quase"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "počtí",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "почти́"
    },
    {
      "code": "sk",
      "lang": "Slovak",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "takmer"
    },
    {
      "code": "sk",
      "lang": "Slovak",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "skoro"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "casi"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "praktiskt taget"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "nära på"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "very nearly",
      "word": "snudd på"
    }
  ],
  "word": "all but"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (82c8ff9 and f4967a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.