Some Meaning
/sʌm/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
pronA certain number, at least two.
pronA certain number (multiple but not all).
Sentence Examples
For some reason I feel more alive at night.
Do you need me to give you some money?
There's some milk in the fridge.
CEFR Practice Quiz
I bought ____ bananas at the market, but I forgot the exact number.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
We decided to buy ____ fresh fruit from the local market to have as a snack during our road trip.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English som, sum, from Old English sum (“some, a certain one”), from Proto-West Germanic *sum, from Proto-Germanic *sumaz (“some, a certain one”), from Proto-Indo-European *sem- (“one, whole”). Cognate Scots sum, some (“some”), North Frisian som, sam, säm (“some”), West Frisian sommige, somlike (“some”), dialectal Dutch som, saom (“some”), standard Dutch sommige (“some”), Low German somige (“some”), German dialectal summige (“some”), Danish somme (“some”), Swedish somlig (“some”), Norwegian sum, som (“some”), Icelandic sumur (“some”), Gothic 𐍃𐌿𐌼𐍃 (sums, “one, someone”). More at same.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements."
— 2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18:
"Euery counseller extolleth counsell; but there is some that counselleth for himselfe."
— 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ecclesiasticus 37:7:
"Many people, especially some evangelical Christians, have been less than optimistic about the Potter influence."
— 2006, Charles H Lippy, Faith in America [Three Volumes] [3 Volumes]: Changes, Challenges, New Directions, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 73:
"Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete."
— 2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845, archived from the original on 17 Jul 2020:
"Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes."
— 2013 July-August, Sarah Glaz, “Ode to Prime Numbers”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4, archived from the original on 29 Jun 2015:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
I bought ____ bananas at the market, but I forgot the exact number.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
We decided to buy ____ fresh fruit from the local market to have as a snack during our road trip.