more or less
Idioms-
Approximately, as in The truck will hold nine yards of dirt, more or less . This usage was first recorded in 1589.
-
Basically, essentially, as in We more or less agree on the substance of the letter . This usage was first recorded about 1225.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
More or less every every car I drive and you look at the licence plates and how can I rearrange those letters, or that number, or something.
From BBC • Nov. 29, 2025
More or less since Mass Eye and Ear was founded in around 1824, we've been publishing annual reports from the different departments and laboratories.
From Scientific American • Jan. 12, 2023
"More or less, we were pretty stable, especially given the pandemic situation," Lisbon pensioner Leonel Pereira, 66, told Reuters earlier on Thursday.
From Reuters • Nov. 4, 2021
More or less, elite sportsfolk are made up of three elements: ability, mentality and personality.
From The Guardian • Jul. 8, 2021
More or less reflexively, he dropped into his equations something called the cosmological constant, which arbitrarily counterbalanced the effects of gravity, serving as a kind of mathematical pause button.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
