Anymore

How to spell anymore

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce anymore

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anymore mean?

1. adverbAny longer; at or from the present time onward, used chiefly in negative or questioning statements about time.

Anymore in a sentence

• The old factory does not produce car parts anymore.

• She rarely drives into the city centre anymore.

Where does anymore come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a compound of two of the oldest pieces of English vocabulary, 'any' and 'more'. 'Any' descends from the Old English aenig, meaning 'one of, some', which was itself built on an, the ancestor of the modern number 'one'. 'More' comes from Old English mara, meaning 'greater in quantity or degree'. For centuries the two were written as separate words, 'any more', and that open spelling is still common in British usage; the fused single-word form 'anymore' became established especially in American writing during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when used as an adverb of time. The spelling trap is precisely that history: the adverb meaning 'any longer' is increasingly written closed up as one word, while the quantity phrase 'any more cake' stays two words, and writers hesitate over which to use.

How the word is built

• any (from Old English aenig: 'any, one of')
• more (from Old English mara: 'greater, more')