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say it: nahy
nigh is an adjective and adverb meaning "not far distant in time or space or degree or circumstances". It carries 4 recorded senses.
(of actions or states) slightly short of or not quite accomplished; all but
“the job is (just) about done”
“the baby was almost asleep when the alarm sounded”
“we're almost finished”
“the car all but ran her down”
“he nearly fainted”
“talked for nigh onto 2 hours”
“the recording is well-nigh perfect”
“virtually all the parties signed the contract”
“I was near exhausted by the run”
“most everyone agrees”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for nigh come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.