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Glite Dictionary
📦 Quite a lot 🌧️ Very much
right smart

right smart

9.6
Fairly large in amount or degree
  • idiom
  • /raɪt smɑrt/
  • Informal
translation icon : bastante
  • And a right smart amount of my money with it.

Examples

  • The storm last night caused a right smart amount of damage to the crops.

  • "Well, you did a right smart job on the stalls.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • I sell a right smart of those.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • I don't. "Then you have a right smart baby; for there are a dozen women here to help," I told her, and we both laughed.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • Had us a right smart scuffle one time down there in Kansas with them goddamn Kiowas.

    The Homesman (2014)

  • She has a right smart collection of vintage dresses in her wardrobe.

  • They raised a right smart sum of money for the charity event.

Synonyms

big
vsright smart
∞ 1.0

Larger than usual in size or amount

is a regional informal phrase rather than the general term
considerable
vsright smart
305 4.6

Large in size or amount

is informal regional speech used for a similar large amount
sizable
vsright smart
  • US
64 3.7

Quite large in size or amount

is informal regional speech rather than standard usage
tidy
vsright smart
14 3.7

A fairly large amount, often of money

is informal regional speech for the same sense of amount
goodly
vsright smart
12 9.4

Large in amount or size

is informal regional speech instead of older literary phrasing

Antonyms

small
∞ 1.0

Not large in size or amount

insignificant
104 4.1

Not important or too small to matter

How Much

huge
∞ 1.0
major
∞ 1.0
considerable
305 4.6
right smart
  • Informal
9.6
moderate
415 3.3
small
∞ 1.0
slight
594 1.2

Surface Forms

right smart positive
righter smart comparative
rightest smart superlative

Morphology

right + smart

The phrase combines 'right' as an intensifier with 'smart', so a learner who knows 'right' as 'very/completely' could infer an intensified sense; however 'smart' here means 'considerable/a good deal' rather than the common B1 sense 'intelligent'. The specific dialectal/archaic sense and regional usage are not fully predictable from the constituent meanings, so comprehension is partially but not wholly transparent.

Etymology

Right smart may come from a simple pairing of right used like 'very' and smart which once meant 'big' or 'strong'. So when people called something right smart, they meant it was 'considerable' or 'fairly large'.