Almost crossword clue

The most likely answers for the crossword clue “Almost” are MOST, NEAR or NIGH, with 4 letters. Below are 11 answers from 4 to 11 letters, best match first in each length, then what each top answer means and how to tell them apart.

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The best answers, explained

MOST 4 letters · adverb

(of actions or states) slightly short of or not quite accomplished; all but “most everyone agrees”

ABOUT 5 letters · adverb

(of actions or states) slightly short of or not quite accomplished; all but “the job is (just) about done”

NEARLY 6 letters · adverb

(of actions or states) slightly short of or not quite accomplished; all but “he nearly fainted”

SCARCELY 8 letters · adverb

almost not “they scarcely ever used the emergency generator”

VIRTUALLY 9 letters · adverb

(of actions or states) slightly short of or not quite accomplished; all but “virtually all the parties signed the contract”

PRACTICALLY 11 letters · adverb

almost; nearly “practically the first thing I saw when I got off the train”

Telling them apart

With 4 squares, MOST, NEAR and NIGH all fit. The second letter tells them all apart: O → MOST · E → NEAR · I → NIGH. Fill in that crossing answer first.

With 6 squares, NEARLY, HARDLY, BARELY and SCARCE all fit. The first letter tells them all apart: N → NEARLY · H → HARDLY · B → BARELY · S → SCARCE. Fill in that crossing answer first.

What “almost” means

• adverb: (of actions or states) slightly short of or not quite accomplished; all but (“the baby was almost asleep when the alarm sounded”)

A clue usually points at one of these senses, so the right answer is the one that matches the sense the puzzle means: check it against the crossing words.

About these answers

We match the clue against our own thesaurus and dictionary (Open English WordNet): words that mean the same as ALMOST, and words whose definition is ALMOST. We don't copy answers from newspaper puzzles, so a clue that leans on trivia or wordplay may need the crossing letters instead.