ONLY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Only

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/ˈoʊnli/ Listen

adverb

Only adv.

In one manner or degree; for one purpose alone; simply; merely; barely. "And to be loved himself, needs only to be known."

So and no otherwise; no other than; exclusively; solely; wholly. "She being only wicked." "Every imagination... of his heart was only evil."

Singly; without more; as, only-begotten.

Above all others; particularly. (Obs.) "His most only elected mistress."

adjective

Only adj.

One alone; single; as, the only man present; his only occupation.

Alone in its class; by itself; not associated with others of the same class or kind; as, an only child.

Hence, (figuratively): Alone, by reason of superiority; preeminent; chief. "Motley's the only wear."

conjunction

Only conj. Save or except (that); an adversative used elliptically with or without that, and properly introducing a single fact or consideration. "He might have seemed some secretary or clerk... only that his low, flat, unadorned cap... indicated that he belonged to the city."

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Etymology of 'Only'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Only" Quotes from Famous Books

... see Elsa till she was quite close to him, and even then he could only vaguely distinguish the quaint contour of her wide-sleeved shift and of her ...

— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... again when he held up his arms. All the creatures about the place were clean and fearless, quite unlike their relations elsewhere; and Tom begged to be taught how to make all the pigs and cows and poultry in our village tame, at which the farmer only gave one ...

— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... aimlessly with nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to speak to. I've even begun to give up reading novels, because they make me so jealous. It's all wrong, Alice. It's bad and unhealthy. It puts mutinous thoughts into my head. Honestly, the only way in which I can get the sort of thrill that I ought to have now, if ever I am to thrill at all, is in making wild plans of escape, so wild and so naughty that I don't think I'd better write about them, even to ...

— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... what each brought with him. It is because art adds something new to our emotional experience, something that comes not from human life but from pure form, that it stirs us so deeply and so mysteriously. But that, for many, art not only adds something new, but seems to transmute and enrich the old, is certain ...

— Art • Clive Bell

... her robe, a tartan sheen, Till half a leg was scrimply seen; An' such a leg! my bonie Jean Could only peer it; Sae straught, sae taper, tight an' clean— Nane else came ...

— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

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