well
/ˈwɛl/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 6.03 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
adv
adv
To a significant degree.
adv
In a desirable manner; so as one could wish; satisfactorily; favourably; advantageously.
adj
In good health.
adj
Example Sentences
- "He does his job well."
- "My RV runs well on diesel."
- "The jacket looks good and fits you well."
- "In the lightness of my heart I sang catches of songs as my horse gayly bore me along the well-remembered road."
- "A chap named Eleazir Kendrick and I had chummed in together the summer afore and built a fish-weir and shanty at Setuckit Point, down Orham way. For a spell we done pretty well. Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand."
- "Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field."
Etymology
From Middle English wel, wal, wol, wele, from Old English wel (“well, abundantly, very, very easily, very much, fully, quite, nearly”), from Proto-Germanic *wela, *wala (“well”, literally “as wished, as desired”), from Proto-Indo-European *welh₁- (“wish, desire”). Cognates Cognate with Yola vella, waal, wel, well, wull (“well”), Cimbrian boll, bóol (“well”), Dutch wel (“well”), German wohl, wol, woll (“well”), Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk vel (“well”), Faroese væl (“well”), Swedish väl, waͤl (“well”), Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌹𐌻𐌰 (waila, “well”). Related to will.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈwɛl/
- British English: /ˈwɛl/
Usage
- British usage
- Slang
- Archaic
- Intransitive verb