sort of

English

Etymology

From a reanalysis of "sort of" in a phrase such as "a sort of merry dance" from noun ("sort") and preposition ("of") from the prepositional phrase "of merry dance" to adverb modifying "merry".

Adverb

sort of (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic, colloquial) Approximately; in a way; partially; not quite; somewhat.

   It sort of makes sense the way he explains it, but I still don't really understand.

Synonyms

• sorta
• kind of

Translations

in a way etc.

• Finnish: jollain tapaa, jotenkuten, tavallaan
• French: en quelque sorte (fr)
• Portuguese: mais ou menos (pt), aproximadamente (pt), de certa forma (pt)
• Russian: нечто вроде (ru) (nečto vrode), так сказать (ru) (tak skazatʹ), не совсем (ru) (ne sovsem)
• Scottish Gaelic: nàdar de (gd)

• Serbo-Croatian: nekako (sh), na neki način (sh)
• Slovene: na nek način (sl)
• Spanish: parece que, en cierto sentido, de alguna forma, aproximadamente, en aproximación, de alguna manera, más o menos (es)

See also

• of sorts