smallish

Everyday

Fairly small; a bit small but not very. tree →

In the lessons

The ending «-ish» makes a word less exact: smallish, tallish, sevenish. In everyday talk it softens descriptions. In maths problems «smallish» is not a number; it gives no exact information.

Examples

• We live in a smallish house near the park. tree →
• She has a smallish dog, about the size of a cat. tree →
• It was a smallish crowd, maybe fifty people. tree →
• Choose a smallish potato for the baby. tree →
• The school is smallish, with only one class per year. tree →
• The answer is a smallish number, somewhere under ten. tree →

Note

Informal; same meaning as «fairly small», «rather small». No comparative form is usually used.