Loading page
say it: suhm
some is an adjective and adverb meaning "(quantifier) used with either mass nouns or plural count nouns to indicate an unspecified number or quantity". It carries 5 recorded senses.
relatively much but unspecified in amount or extent
“we talked for some time”
“he was still some distance away”
relatively many but unspecified in number
“they were here for some weeks”
“we did not meet again for some years”
(of quantities) imprecise but fairly close to correct
“lasted approximately an hour”
“in just about a minute”
“he's about 30 years old”
“I've had about all I can stand”
“we meet about once a month”
“some forty people came”
“weighs around a hundred pounds”
“roughly $3,000”
“holds 3 gallons, more or less”
“20 or so people were at the party”
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 some 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.