or so
695
1.0
- idiom
:
más o menos
- I had seen my uncle only a week or so before the Alaska trip.
- a year or so
- a decade or so
- past decade or so
Yeah, over the past three weeks or so, things were very hectic.
- Yeah, over the past three weeks or so, things were very hectic.
- You've got, you know, seven years or so, right, Your body of work.
- And as we find out about the third book or so, chaos preceded Amber.
- But over the past year or so, he has shifted.
- Maybe it was an hour, hour or so ago about your metric.
- And after a year or so, we were asked to be syndicated.
- Peter and I would video chat probably twice a month or so for years.
- It's barely been maybe an inch or so of snow cover.
Examples
-
Listen, I'll call you in an hour or so, okay?
-
Yeah, over the past three weeks or so, things were very hectic.
-
So it was about a month or so after that hearing.
-
I had a good week or so and now it's back to this.
-
I think April or so, March or April.
-
Work another month or so, see what you can, and then quit.
-
The whole thing lasted only a minute or so, though it seemed much longer.
Fiction book (1991) -
She arrived back in New York a week or so ago.
-
By that late hour, only four or five of the twenty or so tables were still occupied.
Fiction book (1991) -
We should expect the project to take a month or so to complete.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Not exact but near a number, amount, or time
915
2.7
Almost right, but not exactly
524
3.2
Near the exact number or amount
379
1.0
About an amount or number, not exact
373
1.6
About a number or amount that is not exact
301
2.1
About a number or idea, not exact but close enough
1
1.0
About a number when you do not know the exact amount
People use it before a noun to show a value is not exact
Antonyms
How Approximate
Surface Forms
Morphology
or + so
The meaning 'approximately' can be partly inferred from 'or' (marking alternatives) and 'so' (vague demonstrative), so a learner could plausibly guess 'or something like that' after a number. However, the fixed post‑numeral usage and conventionalized discourse function are somewhat idiomatic and not fully predictable from the separate words, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The adverb or so may come from an older way of saying or and so much, where people would add a small extra amount after a number. So the phrase gives a loose amount and now means 'about'.