veryとは

意味・読み方・使い方

発音

• (英国発音, 米国発音) IPA^(key): /ˈvɛɹi/
• 韻: -ɛri
• Homophone: vary (in some dialects)

形容詞

very (not generally comparable, comparative verier, superlative veriest)

1. (literary) True, real, actual.

   The fierce hatred of a very woman.

   The very blood and bone of our grammar.

   He tried his very best.

   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, Act II, Scene 2,^[1]

     […] I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth.

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Genesis 27:21,^[2]

     And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not.

   • 1641, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916, pp. 32-33,^[3]

     The very essence of truth is plainnesse, and brightnes; the darknes and crookednesse is our own.

   • 1659, Henry Hammond, A Paraphrase and Annotations upon All the Books of the New Testament, London: Richard Davis, 2nd edition, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, Chapter 3, verse 19, p. 517,^[4]

     […] they that think to be wiser then other men, are by so much verier fools then others, and so are discerned to be.

   • 1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made upon Him and His Pension, London: J. Owen and F. & C. Rivington, p. 30,^[5]

     I looked on the consideration of publick service, or publick ornament, to be real and very justice: and I ever held, a scanty and penurious justice to partake of the nature of a wrong.

   • 1855, Chambers's Journal, page 257:

     […]  : he has become a very democrat. He disdains not to be seen in the back-parlour of the petty tradesman, or the cleanly cottage of the intelligent mechanic. He raises his voice in the cause of progress; […]

   • 1887, H. Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure‎^[6]:

     `Thou seest after all I am a very woman.'

   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter III, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384:

     Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

   • 2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times‎^[7]:

     The country’s first black president, and its first president to reach adulthood after the Vietnam War and Watergate, Mr. Obama seemed like a digital-age leader who could at last dislodge the stalemate between those who clung to the government of the Great Society, on the one hand, and those who disdained the very idea of government, on the other.

2. The same; identical.

   He proposed marriage in the same restaurant, at the very table where they first met.

   That's the very tool that I need.

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], OCLC 752825175:

     Molly the dairymaid came a little way from the rickyard, and said she would pluck the pigeon that very night after work. She was always ready to do anything for us boys; and we could never quite make out why they scolded her so for an idle hussy indoors. It seemed so unjust. Looking back, I recollect she had very beautiful brown eyes.

3. With limiting effect: mere.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     We have many examples in our daies, yea in very children, of such as for feare of some slight incommoditie have yeelded unto death.

   • 2004, Paul Campos, The Obesity Myth: Why America's Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to Your Health, Penguin (→ISBN):

     Given the degree of fear and loathing inspired by the very thought of a fat body in America today, it is important to emphasize that all of the medical information in the counterfactual world I have just sketched is itself quite factual.

使用する際の注意点

• very is used exclusively attributively and never predicatively.

同意語

• (same, identical): ilk (Scotland, Northern England), selfsame

副詞

very (not comparable)

1. To a great extent or degree.

   Synonyms: greatly, drastically, extremely

   That dress is very you.

   Not very many (of them) had been damaged.

   She's very like her mother.

   Is she busy?’ -‘Not very.’

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], OCLC 2666860, page 0091:

     Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully furnished, and was very clean. ¶ There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 13, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     “[…] They talk of you as if you were Croesus—and I expect the beggars sponge on you unconscionably.” And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes.

2. Conforming to fact, reality or rule; true.

   Synonyms: truly, actually, authentically

3. (with superlatives) Used to firmly establish that nothing else surpasses in some respect.

   He was the very best runner there.

使用する際の注意点

• When used in their senses as degree adverbs, "very" and "too" never modify verbs (except in some dialects influenced by Chinese: see citations).

同意語

• (to a great extent): ever so, main (dialectal), mighty, sore (古風な用法), swith (dialectal), way too, eminently