quite

quite

adverb \ˈkwīt\

Definition of QUITE

1

: wholly, completely <not quite finished>

2

: to an extreme : positively <quite sure> —often used as an intensifier with a <quite a swell guy> <quite a beauty>

3

: to a considerable extent : rather <quite near>

See Usage Discussion at plenty

— quite a bit

: a considerable amount

— quite a few

: many

Examples of QUITE

1. “Are you quite finished?” “Not quite.”
2. I am quite capable of doing it myself, thank you.
3. They assured me that I was quite mistaken.
4. We hadn't quite made up our minds.
5. She's quite right, you know.
6. I quite forgot your birthday.
7. No one realized quite what was happening.
8. Quite why he left is unclear.
9. That is not quite what I said.
10. He felt that the world he had loved had quite gone. —Edmund Wilson, New York Times Book Review, 20 July 1986
11. The men who made love to the left-wing college girls were either medical students, who had contempt for them and forgot them, or jocks, who bragged falsely of having made conquests of quite other girls. —Renata Adler, Pitch Dark, 1983
12. Irene Franey, a little older than I, was quite a beauty —John O'Hara, letter, 30 Dec. 1963
13. In my opinion, my work … ain't quite good enough … —William Faulkner, in Faulkner in the University, (1959) 1977

Origin of QUITE

Middle English, from quite, adjective, quit

First Known Use: 14th century

Related to QUITE

Synonyms

all, all of, all over, altogether, clean, completely, dead, enough, entire, entirely, even, exactly, fast, flat, full, heartily, out, perfectly, plumb [chiefly dialect], fully, soundly, thoroughly, through and through, totally, utterly, well, wholly, wide

Antonyms

half, halfway, incompletely, part, partially, partly

Related Words

absolutely, categorically, cold, downright, hands down, plain, stone, stone-cold, unqualifiedly; basically, by and large, chiefly, generally, largely, mainly, more or less, mostly, overall, predominantly, predominately, primarily, principally, substantially; abundantly, copiously, generously, greatly

Near Antonyms

barely, hardly, just, kind of, marginally, minimally, scarcely, slightly, superficially; approximately, roughly, somewhat

Rhymes with QUITE

bight, bite, blight, bright, byte, cite, dight, dite, fight, flight, fright, height, hight, kite, knight, krait, kyte, light, lite, might, mite, night, plight, right, rite, sight, site, sleight, slight, smite, spite, sprite, tight, trite, white, wight, wite, wright, write