If you're an ESL speaker or something thinking this will be useful, I'd suggest caution (heh, changed that from 'very wary').
Many of the proposed alternatives I saw clicking through 'random' have a subtlety or specificity that the original 'very adj' doesn't - so it sounds like you mean something you might not (probably don't) if you say 'colossal' instead of 'tall' or 'emaciated' instead of 'skinny' for example.
And 'pungent' instead of 'tasty' is just plain wrong.
"So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays." -- The Dead Poets Society
This is one of the most pernicious pieces of cargo-cult writing advice that gets smeared all over the internet.
When writing, you should think carefully about your word choice, and adapt it for your audience, context, intended effect, etc.
"Lose the very" is the exact opposite of thinking carefully. It ignores all the subtle shades of meaning that different words bring. Almost no words have direct swap-in synonyms.
If you follow this advice, you end up with a mess of incoherent verbiage that (probably) says something very different to what was intended.
very + unique = incomparable
Nice, although a rather large group of TV viewers of The West Wing know that "unique means one of a kind, something can't be very unique"[0]. It still amazes me how some of the quotes from that show stick with me all these years later.
0) https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE?t=162 or the whole scene https://youtu.be/Fvb1e4-YgRE
When you write something, what it is that you are doing, to put it very (clearly excessively) plainly, is selecting words that convey some meaning in some way that pleases you, the writer. Choose your words. You can try to choose words to please others if you like, but there's not much reason to expect success from such a strategy. Choose your words. Find your audience.
This might be a useful way to discover words for some writers. It's unfortunate that it also supports and validates the meme of this sort of very simplistic, trivial, easily parroted, stick-in-head, catchphrase-based writing advice meme.
The only way to write some sentences correctly is to use the word "only". And sometimes that that can't be removed, without changing the meaning. Or that's just the way you like it and that's that. It's like how premature optimisation is the root of all evil so you should never consider performance before the beta. Like adverbs, and starting sentences with a conjunction, or the inscrutable semicolon literal emdash all of these writing advice memes are very, very flawed.
Proponents of such things might claim that "obviously" you're (only) meant to apply such an intensely absolute rule where appropriate. Take chillpills, grandparent. I just hope that it's quite invisible that I find this somewhat hilarious, but also quite miserable.
I ran a few words through and I am not willing to buy into the elimination of very.
As noted (very or not) unique and incomparable are not the same. These words have nuanced differences.
Every word I checked failed to provide the a proper equivalent. Context matters.
very hard is not always demanding
very clean =/= sparkling
very old =/= ancient
very dark =/= bleak
I've seen such advice in many writing forums (other examples include don't use adverbs, don't use passive voice, etc.), and while it certainly pays to heed your choice of vocabulary, I'm not convinced that simply avoiding a fixed set of words or forms is good advice. Let alone replacing them with a fixed set of substitutes.
Open a few good books and essays, and see if there are adverbs, "very", passive voices, or other bad forms. These are reputable works written by careful and capable writers, and enjoyed by many readers. If they are all deemed wrong in the eyes of such advice, it's the advice that's wrong.
The valuable lesson is to actively think about the words you use, whether the text accurately convey what you mean, in the tone you desire, and is readable by your intended audience.
I'd say a good pair of thesaurus and dictionary is much better than this website. At least you got multiple candidates, an explanation of each, and get to choose the most appropriate one.
You can also just drop the “very”. There’s no need for a fancy word to replace the thing you’re very very about.
For example, if you’re writing “very tall”, change it into “tall” and re-read the sentence. It’ll be better.
I learned this by reading Scott Adams’ excellent 3-minute essay on writing: https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the...
Mark Twain supposedly said:
Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very'. Your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
This is good advice with one exception: if you write plain English for non-native speakers.
I use "very" a lot, because it's a well-understood modifier. "very bad" is cleared than "appalling". It will be understood by all without needing a large vocabulary.
An alternative is to use the "plus-" and "doubleplus-" prefixes.
When I open the page, it says "very + loading... = loading...", for a few moments because of course you need at least a second to load two more words from the server.
Always great to see how useless the internet can be when we try really hard.
While it’s fine that the annoying student who always corrected your grammar in school has enough extra cash to host this site, it’s a shame they still haven’t applied themselves to anything useful or interesting.
Something that HAS been very helpful to me (very surprisingly to me, who was very skeptical)… outlook’s “make it more concise” hints. Makes my emails waaay more concise and direct… I hate coming across as cocky or confident but they hit the nail on the head for me. Very helpful.
It's just wrong. "Very" + "outstanding" is not the same as "distinguished". "Very" + "entertaining" is not the same as "absorbing". I've only tried it a few times, but not once has it come up with a proposal that is correct.
You have to use a lot of judgment to pare these down, or you'll do more harm than good.
"My car is very fast" -> "My car is breakneck"
"It's going to be very cold tomorrow" -> "It's going to be Siberian tomorrow"
"Those shoes are very expensive" -> "Those shoes are lavish"
In programming, mathematics and physics, our goal is to express our thoughts in a concise way without introducing too many different concepts.
Applied to language, the word 'very' is great. It can be used in many occasions and is generally understood. What's wrong with that?
This is missing an important factor for writing: context. There are many places where it's fine to wax lyrical and reach for the thesaurus. But if you're trying to write clearly and concisely then there is something to be said for simplicity.
Tried a few word. Mostly "not yet added". The rest reminded me that episode of friends where Joey wrote letter with thesaurus to look smart...
I tried out "very tired" and got "exhausted", "spent" and "flagging".
Obligatory caveat: I'm a second-language English speaker but I've been fluent for some twenty years and read and write English on a daily basis.
I expected it to suggest "exhausted" but that just feels like a synonym (interestingly, "very exhausted" has no available suggestion). It also implies prior physical or mental effort, whereas "very tired" could also be the result of bad or insufficient sleep. Synonyms are rarely equivalent and this one just seems to suggest context that may be inappropriate.
"Spent" seems like a more obvious example of this problem, putting the emphasis on depletion of energy rather than not having recovered in the first place. I'd also say it's less approachable as it's a colloquial metaphor. I know I had to do a double take when I came across this use as a learner. Either way, it's no more elegant than "very tired".
"Flagging" throws me for a loop. I have no intutive sense what that word is even intended to mean in this context. The dictionary merely suggests it's a synonym for "exhausted" but provides no etymological information or context. I would guess it's metaphorical (in the sense of "giving up" by waving a flag of surrender, or signaling for help as if waving a flag) but I wouldn't have guessed the meaning from reading it without context. Especially as I've only ever seen it used as a transitive word, meaning to mark something for review or special treatment.
Sure, avoid "very" if you want to write literature. But if you're writing for clarity rather than art, please stick to "very" if it avoids digging through a thesaurus just for the sake of it.
"very hard" -> formidable ? I don't agree because there are multiple interpretations. I would have liked multiple results, e.g., formidable, diamond-like, arduous, etc.
In other words, don't use this site blindly.
There's a good reason not to do this: your new fancy word is less likely to be understood by those with lower English literacy.
On one hand, I think this kind of service can help people expand their vocabularies.
On the other hand, there's a downside risk of replacing unimaginative writing with confused writing. "very + fragile -> feeble" is absolutely not a reliable translation[1]. The suggestions furnished by this service seem to generally 'work' in the sense that their possible meanings include "very + (category)," but without context you explode the set of messages you might communicate. Something that is fragile breaks easily. Something that is very fragile more so. Something that is feeble is lacking strength in general, it may give out at any time, it connotes a sense of being underweight, etc. All concepts that "very fragile" may be hoping to avoid invoking (however clumsily).
Switching words switches meanings.
[1] One might argue that 'fragile' does not need assistance at all in this case.
I simply wish people would stop using simply to describe how to do things, for example
"To install this package, simply ..."
very lazy
Usage of "very" in the collected works of Shakespeare's: https://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/search/search-results....
(some of these are false positives, e.g. "this very sword", where it's not used as an intensifier)
I don't understand this quest that certain pencil-pushers seem to have with wanting to restrict the usage of certain words or even entire grammatical constructions (e.g. the crusade against the passive voice). Good writing means thinking about your words, your sentence structure, etc., yes - but not arbitrarily throwing out half of the language because of some weird dogmas.
In no circumstance ever will I substitute "very thirsty" with "cottonmouthed".
Outside of writing an English essay, I don't see why the use of very is looked down upon. "Very good" or "very smart" is fine and is common in everyday speech.
When emphasising language becomes habitual, it's intended impact may actually be lessened, by way of the "boy crying wolf" effect. That is, if everything is described as "very" and "really" and "actually", then those emphasisers no longer stand out. We start to ignore them, and the collective energy spent writing them is somewhat wasted.
So I say: let a standalone word suffice, whenever possible. Save emphasis for appropriate moments.
It playfully encourages people to think and write more lyrically. Perhaps the mathematical notation, also apparently intended to be metaphorical, implies a literal variable substitution objective where there is none.
Obviously, words have nuance of meaning dependent on multiple factors.
The point, it seems to me, is just to try to write more creatively, even in work and business.
Poetry can fill even the tiniest spaces. There is always a little room for it.
The website's design is great and simple with no explanation needed of how to use it. Would be snappier if it matched on words automatically so I wouldn't need to press enter.
I noticed with my own writing the use of lazy structures, such as too many adverbs, very, "statement, but concession" sentences, or parenthesis for tangents.
It isn't that these things are always bad. It was only when reading my older works I realized how much I was over-using these that it made my writing as a whole worse. My way of thinking about things, imagery for scenes, everything was getting impacted by the constant use of those sentence structures. Your thoughts can't help but be impacted if you're upping the "impact" of each emotion, phrase, description to be "very" or "lovely purple".
Its OK for descriptions to stand on their own, and the same is true for simple words. A blue coat, the sad man, the lone frog in a pond in the rain.
Write different; you'll be surprised how much you think different, too.
Yeah, just use literally. It's literally a better word.
As others have pointed out the fancier word is not always a drop in for the “very x”.
But that isn’t how to use these tools. These tools are great for _reminding you that these other words exist._ I bet most of our writing is riddled with lazy idioms because we’re doing the hard work of turning thoughts into words. That’s hard enough without raising the bar even higher.
Once the first pass is written down however it’s valuable to do a quick skim to see “is there anything I can do to make this more readable? To make it so that my idea gets implanted in the readers brain?”
If you write a paragraph and say very three—or even two— times, a tool that can quickly give you alternatives will make your writing more readable.
I feel like this is is high school lit level advice. I've heard that in the US, part of the grade on essays is calculated algorithmically, based on the rarity of words one uses.
My teachers also tried to get me to avoid word repetition in my writing, such as the word 'very' 'say' etc. but never explained to me why it is a bad thing.
My personal theory is the usage synonyms is important to make sentences look 'dissimilar' as possible. This aids in reading comprehension, as samey looking sentences can lead the readers to lose track of their progress, similarly how one can lose their way physically without the aid of distinctive landmarks.
Don’t lose the «very» in your daily speak. Language should first and foremost be accessible to others, not exquisite. Unless you’re writing a novel, and unless the accuracy of the more elegant substitute word you’d use really matters.
Like many people, I tend to use "very" a lot. But there's often no need to find the appropriate superlative: the best cure is simply to delete it. It makes the sentence stronger by making the reader do half the work.
Why do we still have to fill the database ?
This used to be a task for word vectors woman - man + king = queen
But thinking more about it, isn't it a task for GPT-3 now ?
You write your input prompt with some random known example and you ask the last one for completion.
"very + energetic = spirited \n very + nervous = shrinking \n very + arrogant = brazen \n very + upset = fuming \n very + wet = "
It would be fun to be able to apply multiple times very to a word to see what you get, and maybe trace a Dynkin diagram of the English language.
App doesn't work for me.
I think generally it's a good idea to avoid excessive adverbs and adjectives, but sometimes I consciously choose to use not even just 'very', but 'very, very', in cases where the simplicity of language and the excessive repetition feels appropriate to the situation. Usually in very informal online speech.
'Very' serves an important purpose, but it's most effective at it when you restrict it to situations where you absolutely need it.
There's a lot more words than "very" which are popular verbal ticks in the modern world. "Really" is another one. But instead of worrying about one that a rando on the internet made a site about; record yourself speaking and watch yourself back consciously. Learn to be an editor for yourself.
For most people, there's more important ways they could improve their written and spoken communication than worrying about extraneous words.
I think there's a lot you can criticize about this site. The suggestions are often questionable, and there's quite a few very common adjectives for which there are no suggestions at all ("delicious" for example yields "not yet added"). That said, the value of this site imho is it's simplicity, and that it focuses you to think about your use of the word "very", and how you can express ideas better.
Very nice. Erm… charming?
My critical sidebar: a thesaurus-like app featured on product hunt? How about featuring a full thesaurus? The UI is nice~
For other grammar and alternative nits, I recommend https://hemingwayapp.com/ . Ex: helps remove words like “just” and suggests better active tone English writing.
I’d say combining the two apps would yield a really strong writing assistant.
Easy way to stump it: Take the output and put it in the input. very + cute -> adorable. very adorable -> no result (may need to repeat for some words).
The first random one I got was simply incorrect:
very + old = dilapidated
And several others weren't much better:
very + helpful = essential
There are definitely words for which "very" is unnecessary and an alternate would be better, but in other cases the intensifier is actually the right choice.
And if you do want to reduce your usage of "very", at least check a dictionary before you trust the site's output.
I agree with a lot of the other comments regarding the accuracy of the substitutions suggested here. Having said that, I do think 'very' is overused in daily conversational English. I've found myself replacing it with 'quite' more often now, just for personal taste.
Looks like you can see what adjectives are in the database at this endpoint: https://api.airtable.com/v0/appHLMobCaTLuVQQy/Data?api_key=k...
I expected the site to literally lose the 'very' à la Hemingway's quip about ten-dollar words.
I find https://www.wordhippo.com/ a much superior vocabulary discovery tool. It has myriad (very many) recommendations for "very late" whereas losetheevery.com has none.
"very rude" is turned into "ill-mannered". I would say the second one is softer (very soft actually) than "rude".
For many of them, looking into multiple dictionaries it appears that they are synonymous of the word, rather than a stronger meaning.
For extra impact. Pick the word from here and add very in front of it.
Very + Cool = Dandy
Use Very dandy for extra impact. XD
Adjectives are marketing for nouns.
Adverbs are commercials for verbs. "Literally", "actually", "truly", "unquestionably", "honestly", "totally", "so", ... are useless.
Damn ad's.
First example:
Very dangerous => Treacherous
Definition of treacherous: guilty of or involving betrayal or deception.
Of course things can be dangerous and even very dangerous without betrayal or deception. Climbing Mount Everest is very dangerous. But is it treacherous?
This web site is strange. English is notable for having a ton of verbs. If you listen to a native speaker with a rich vocabulary, you will not hear a lot of rare adjectives, you will hear stronger verbs.
In elementary school, I was exhorted to avoid "flabby words" when possible. i.e. words that lengthen without adding meaning. "Very" is often such a word, but not always.
It's a funny joke and gets your mind going, but in the field, "very" doesn't get used that much to warrant wholesale replacing. It's not very prevalent, actually
As a non-native English speaker, I know only one synonym of "very" - "so", as was popularized from Friends sitcom. For example:
This building is very tall - this building is so tall.
I tried 5 words and all of them were not supported. I assume it provides support for simple words like hot or shy, but then it targets only beginners?
I'm not very impressed.
Sorry, I mean I'm underwhelmed.
It's extremely odd how people focus on very when there are a staggeringly large number of other emphasis words. It's a supremely rediculous bias.
very + very = Not Yet Added
This makes me very sad. Very very sad in fact.
Half of editing is deleting superfluous words. But also, sometimes adding a few "dead weight" phrases can make text feel easier to comprehend.
[Le me, attempting to replace 'very + x' with single posh word]
- "Are you Dr Watson?"
- "The very same"
- "Ah. Don't you mean ... the indistinguishable?"
- "... no."
[Fail]
It's playful and interesting, a bit like a thesaurus but not nearly as good. Take it with a grain of salt.
I would like to see something similar for semicolons.
‘Very’ comes from the Latin for true and could be replaced with ‘truly’. In that sense, it’s like ‘literally’ and other attempts to emphasise.
Easy, just replace every 'very' with 'mega' or 'super'. Done already across the industry :D.
Very nice!
Very + healthy = instrumental
What?
Very + Happy = Intoxicated. So true! :D
> very + difficult = strenuous
It also offered up “laborious” and “challenging”. None convey the actual intended meaning
No, I'd rather spend my time doing something useful than looking for replacements for words.
From the random picker: very + complex = your mom [Grin]
Also: very + happy = jubilant very + jubilant = not yet added
I find it doubleplus disappointing that no one is pointing out some Orwellian alternatives.
I was going to say "very cool", but instead I'll say "ceaseless!" ...
discovery - very = disco
bravery - very = bra
delivery - very = deli
slavery - very = sla
This seems to be a solution to a problem that does not exist, but it is very fun.
very + good = sterling
According to the site very friendly = benevolent but that doesn't seem correct
You should add a link to the famous scene about this in Dead Poets Society :)
You can usually replace “very” with “fuckin’” and convey the same meaning.
Q: How many Northern Californians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Hella!!!
Q: How many Southern Californians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Totally!!!
There's a perceptual dialectological difference between "hella pregnant" (Northern California) and "totally pregnant" (Southern California).
Hella Nor Cal or Totally So Cal? The Perceptual Dialectology of California
http://eng.sagepub.com/content/35/4/325.abstract
https://web.archive.org/web/20141008111115/https://people.du...
This study provides the first detailed account of perceptual dialectology within California (as well as one of the first accounts of perceptual dialectology within any single state). Quantitative analysis of a map-labeling task carried out in Southern California reveals that California's most salient linguistic boundary is between the northern and southern regions of the state. Whereas studies of the perceptual dialectology of the United States as a whole have focused almost exclusively on regional dialect differences, respondents associated particular regions of California less with distinctive dialects than with differences in language (English versus Spanish), slang use, and social groups. The diverse sociolinguistic situation of California is reflected in the emphasis both on highly salient social groups thought to be stereotypical of California by residents and nonresidents alike (e.g., surfers) and on groups that, though prominent in the cultural landscape of the state, remain largely unrecognized by outsiders (e.g., hicks).
[...]
By far, the most frequently remarked-upon slang term in the map-labeling data was hella, accounting for 47.4 percent of the slang and other lexical labels. Hella is a slang term originating in Northern California and one that remains—aside from a few brief moments in the national spotlight due to its circulation in popular culture— largely restricted to that region (Bucholtz 2006). The term, which apparently lexicalized from (a) hell of (a), functions as both a quantifier (There were hella people there) and an intensifier (He runs hella fast). Four respondents also mentioned the slang term hecka, the G-rated equivalent of hella, but this term was not counted separately, because tokens of hecka always co-occurred with hella. For Southern Californians in particular, hella represents a crucial shibboleth separating the two major regions of the state. As shown in Figure 7, respondents tended to identify hella overwhelmingly as a Northern California slang term, and its appearance in other regions of the map drops dramatically from north to south. Thus Northern California was variously labeled the hellas, Land of the Hella’s, and Hella capital, and one respondent provided an isogloss designating “the ‘hella’ line.” (In the map data, the Central Coast around Santa Barbara seemed to be the dividing line between users and nonusers of hella, and the fact that the study was conducted in this region may have enhanced respondents’ focus on this particular issue.) [*10: The respondent’s confusion may also be due to the existence of the Crips, a notorious Los Angeles–based gang.] Hella users were also negatively evaluated by Southern Californians, and the term came in for a good deal of criticism, such as Hella is not a real word and [hecka is] probably the worst word ever.
Isogloss:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isogloss
Hella:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hella
>Hella is an American slang term that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is used as an intensifying adverb such as in "hella bad" or "hella good" and was eventually added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2002. It is possibly a contraction of the phrase "hell of a" or "hell of a lot [of]", in turn reduced to "hell of", though some scholars doubt this etymology since its grammatical usage does not align with those phrases. It often appears in place of the words "really", "a lot", "totally", "very", and in some cases, "yes". Whereas hell of a is generally used with a noun, according to linguist Pamela Munro, hella is primarily used to modify an adjective such as "good".
Usage:
Intensifier
While intensifiers similar to hella exist in many colloquial varieties, hella is uncommonly flexible. It can be used to modify almost any part of speech, as shown below:
That pizza was hella good: hella modifies the adjective good, where Standard American English would use very.
Chris's pizza is hella better than anyone else's: hella modifies the adjective better, replacing much.
I ate hella pizza: hella modifies the noun pizza, replacing a lot of.
I hella bought four pizzas: hella modifies the verb to buy, replacing really or totally.
I ran to the pizza joint hella quickly: hella modifies the adverb quickly, replacing very.
Was the party fun last night? -- Hella!: hella is used on its own as a reply replacing very or totally.
SI prefix
An online petition begun in 2010 by Austin Sendek of Yreka, California seeks to establish "hella-" as the SI prefix for 1027. The prefix was recognized by Google in May 2010, and Wolfram Alpha in May 2011. In 2013, Andrew McAfee suggested the term hellabyte with this usage.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25788993
Quixotic Californian crusade to officially recognize the hellabyte (theregister.com)
https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/14/hellabyte_si_prefix/
The Californians:
Begs the question where should I use my "very" then?
This website is the epitome of "do one thing and do it well"
Bravo
You think Stevie Wonder is playing your games?
“Exceptionally superstitious
Writing on the wall”
Very awful!
following their advice, losethevery.com should redirect to losethe.com
(give me a few minutes with a thesaurus and I'll come up with a better 302)
Thank you much!
Someone has a pet peeve. lol
Obligatory reminder of the elative:
In German:
sehr schnell (very fast) -> blitzschnell (lightning fast)
sehr gross (very big) -> riesengross (giant big)
sehr reich (very rich) -> steinreich (stone rich)
sehr arm (very poor) -> bettelarm (beggar poor)
It's a bit easier vocab-wise for foreigners.
very + beautiful = statuesque I'm not sure how helpful this is...
The English language has 100,000+ words. Most native speakers know less than 10% of them. You'll probably be less, not more, easily understood, if every time your instinct is to use "very", you replace it with a hyper-specific adjective or adverb. In most cases, all you'll achieve is snobbery.
TL;DR: keep calm and very on.
very + sweet = saccharine?
From me it's a no. But some results are pretty good.
s/very/awesomely/g
done.
That’s very useful.
Nice, very useful
very + pretentious = Not Yet Added
Very useful
Very good!
Mystik
this is very interesting
very + awesome = ??
Very + excellent = not yet added
Very + squamous = nya
Very + blue = nya
Lol
very + very =
very well
very + creepy = creepy
lol
ludicrous
undefined
As a native speaker, my reply is: no[1]
Firstly this appears to be a way to boast about the size of your vocabulary. That's great, but, frankly you are walking into a bigarsed zone of unintended connotations. Its more than likely to do the exact opposite.
Second, half of the suggestions are wrong. for example "very ashamed" is not the same as repentant. shame and regret are two similar things, but not the same. same with "very healthy" being a synonym for exuberant. Exuberant is full of energy, not feeling healthy. again linked but not the same.
All of you who want to sound either more "well read", or more native, this website will lead you astray.
All of you who are non-native, this website will confuse you and make you question your understanding. listen to bbc radio4/read the financial times, it will be better for you and there is wide range of styles to choose from (in the case of the BBC its free too)
using 'very' is perfectly fine, just try to limit it's use to once a sentence at the very minimum(no you can't swap very minimum for "the least" maybe "at the very least"). "Very" adds emphasis in a clear and understandable way. in other words, it can make thing very readable, without very much effort. (yes I am taking the piss.)
[1] apart from a few circumstances