ever so
80
4.2
- idiom
:
muy
- Just going to make it look ever so slightly more natural.
- ever so slightly
- ever so slowly
- ever so subtly
And I, in my mind, celebrate them ever so briefly as small victories.
- And I, in my mind, celebrate them ever so briefly as small victories.
- I tend to go ever so slightly outside my lip line.
- Thank you, Gwyneth Paltrow, for that ever so useful euphemism.
- And we've gone ever so well ever since.
Examples
-
But thank you ever so much.
-
Billy's walking ever so well now.
-
This one you can see is just ever so slightly more see through.
-
There is a place I know, but it's ever so far away.
-
I tend to go ever so slightly outside my lip line.
-
The Pro Plus model is ever so slightly shorter.
-
And we've gone ever so well ever since.
-
Now this concealer is ever so slightly brighter than my skin tone.
-
It's buildable and it's got an ever so slight glow to it.
-
The dress is ever so beautiful under the evening lights.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Shows how strong something is, for example very cold
12
6.0
To emphasize something, like saying very
5
5.4
To make a describing word much stronger
4
4.4
Adds emphasis to say something is very strong
1
8.4
A way people say to show they mean something very strongly
1
9.8
To add strong emphasis before an adjective or adverb
Antonyms
How Intense
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is an intensifier formed from 'so' (meaning 'very') with 'ever' reinforcing that degree, so the overall meaning 'very/extremely' is related to the literal meanings of the parts. However, 'ever' more commonly functions as a temporal adverb and its use here as an intensifier is a fixed collocation that may not be fully predictable to a B1 learner, so the transparency is partial.
Etymology
The adverb ever so comes from putting ever (meaning 'always') before so (meaning 'to that degree'), giving the picture of something being 'always that much'. That's why people use ever so today as a gentle way to say 'very'.