Somewhat

How to spell somewhat

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce somewhat

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does somewhat mean?

1. adverbTo a moderate or limited extent; rather but not completely.

Somewhat in a sentence

• The report was somewhat longer than the manager had expected.

• Prices have risen somewhat since the spring budget.

Where does somewhat come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a native English compound, joining the Old English 'sum', meaning 'some' or 'a certain amount', with 'hwæt', the ancestor of modern 'what', which in older usage could mean 'something' or 'a thing'. In Middle English the two were written together as 'sumwhat' or 'somwhat', literally 'some thing' or 'some amount', and from this concrete sense of a partial quantity grew the adverbial meaning 'to a certain extent'. The shift from naming a vague amount to softening a statement happened naturally, since saying something is 'somewhat cold' is much like saying it has 'some' coldness. Because both halves remain recognisable everyday words, the spelling is transparent, and the only real trap is remembering to write it as a single solid word rather than the two separate words 'some what'.

How the word is built

• some (an unspecified quantity or degree)
• what (thing or amount), forming an adverb meaning 'to some degree'