veriest
SayVER-ee-ist/ˈvɛɹ.i.ɪst/
- 1Superlative of very.
She dismissed his elaborate excuse as the veriest nonsense.
The veriest trifle was enough to set off his temper that day.
Note
The comparison is built on the literary adjective very, 'true, real', not on the everyday intensifying adverb. It nearly always sits between the and a noun, and the nouns it reaches for are slight or scornful: the veriest trifles in Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), the veriest dullards in Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction (2014). Read it as 'the purest example of'.
veriest is a form of very
very, adjective: The same or identical; that precise one. Full entry
- Spelling
- very → veriest: change y to i, add -est
Use it in a sentence
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