very

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English verrei, also verray and verrai,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman verrai, also verai, and verai, vrai (modern French vrai),^[5][3][6] meaning true, truthful, genuine or rightful; the Anglo-Norman word is recorded from the late 12th century.^[7][4] The French adjective goes back to the stem of Latin vērus (“true”).^[5][6] Most dictionaries trace it through Vulgar Latin *vērācus, which corresponds to vērāx (“truthful”), a derivative of vērus;^{[8][3][9][10]} Hoad and Ayto give the Romance form as *vērāius and call its formation from vērus obscure,^[11][12] and Weekley also considered a derivation from aiō (“I say”).^[13] The English ending was assimilated to the suffix -y.^[11][6] The Latin adjective comes from Proto-Indo-European *wērə-o- (“true, trustworthy”),^[8][4][3] which also gave Old Irish fír (“true”) and Welsh gwir,^[3][11] and the cognates Old High German wār (“true”) (modern German wahr), Old Saxon wār, Old Frisian wēr, Middle Dutch waer (Dutch waar) and Old English wǣr (“true, correct”).^[3][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

As an adjective, truly entitled to the name, of persons or of God: about 1250, in the Kentish Sermons.^[5] Barnhart dates verray, true, real, genuine, to about 1275,^[3] and Dictionary.com to 1200–50.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The word was at first only an adjective meaning "true",^[12] applied to persons and to God (as in the Creed's very God of very God), then to abstract and material things.^[5][6] From the late 14th century it came to mean "actual, sheer", as in the very air, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,^[3][4] and in emphatic use it marked a thing as so called in the fullest sense, as in a 1384 passage of Chaucer.^[5] The adverb, "truly, really", is recorded from before 1325, and the meaning "greatly, extremely" from 1448;^[3] Etymonline finds the word used as a pure intensive by the late 14th century and in the sense "greatly" by the mid-15th,^[4] and Ayto places the start of the intensifying role in the 15th century.^[12] Barnhart sees the emphatic use as a natural extension of "true" and "truly", attributable to both the adjective and the adverb.^[3] Writers of the 16th century introduced the comparison verier, veriest.^[4] The adjective's older senses, "faithful" (of a friend) and "rightful, lawful", had died out by the 17th century,^[6] and the sense "true, genuine" is now archaic.^[6] Weekley notes that the original sense survives in verily and in phrases such as the very image.^[13] In English dialects the word took forms such as varry and vara in Yorkshire and vurry on the Isle of Wight.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – adjective, truly entitled to the name, of persons or God.^[5]
• before 1300 – true, real, of abstract things.^[5]
• before 1325 – adverb, truly, really.^[3]
• c. 1374 – the very with a noun: the true or real one, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^[5]
• 1384 – emphatic, so called in the fullest sense, in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women.^[5]
• c. 1390 – actual, sheer, as in the very air.^[3][4]
• 1448 – adverb, greatly, extremely.^[3] Etymonline dates this sense to the mid-15th century.^[4]
• 1690s – the very thing, just what is needed.^[4]

Meanings

Adverb

1. To a high degree; extremely: a very cold morning.^[16][9]
2. Used for emphasis before a superlative or before same, own or next: the very first train, his very own bicycle.^[9][16]

Adjective

1. Exact, precise, the actual one meant: That is the very book I lost.^[16][9]
2. Used to stress the importance or extreme nature of a noun: The very thought of it made her shiver.^[16][6]
3. Mere, sheer; nothing other than: They gave up from very weariness.^[9][6]
4. (archaic) True, genuine, properly so called: very God of very God.^[9][6]

Word family

• very high frequency
• very large scale integration
• Very Reverend

Related words

• verily
• verity
• veritable
• verify
• verdict
• verisimilitude
• veracious
• aver

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary notes that very alone does not normally modify a past participle used as a verb (one says very much praised), but does modify participles that have become adjectives, such as delighted or disappointed, and that the status of some participles is still disputed.^[17] Dictionary.com adds that an intervening adverb (very much relieved, very greatly excited) is acceptable in either case.^[14] The Very light, a coloured signal flare, has a separate source: it is named after Edward W. Very (1847–1910), a United States naval officer, and is recorded from 1907.^[5][6]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin