• (British, America) IPA: /ˈvɛɹi/

very (not comparable)

1. True, real, actual.

   The fierce hatred of a very woman.  The very blood and bone of our grammar.  He tried his very best.

   • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, Act II, Scene 2,

     […] I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth.

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Book of Genesis 27:21,

     And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not.

   • 1641, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916, pp. 32-33,

     The very essence of truth is plainnesse, and brightnes; the darknes and crookednesse is our own.

   • 1659, Henry Hammond, A Paraphrase and Annotations upon All the Books of the New Testament, London: Richard Davis, 2nd edition, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, Chapter 3, verse 19, p. 517,

     […] they that think to be wiser then other men, are by so much verier fools then others, and so are discerned to be.

   • 1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made upon Him and His Pension, London: J. Owen and F. & C. Rivington, p. 30,

     I looked on the consideration of publick service, or publick ornament, to be real and very justice: and I ever held, a scanty and penurious justice to partake of the nature of a wrong.

   • 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter III, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, OCLC 40817384 ↗:

     Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

2. The same; identical.

   He proposed marriage in the same restaurant, at the very table where they first met.  That's the very tool that I need.

   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], OCLC 752825175 ↗:

     Molly the dairymaid came a little way from the rickyard, and said she would pluck the pigeon that very night after work. She was always ready to do anything for us boys; and we could never quite make out why they scolded her so for an idle hussy indoors. It seemed so unjust. Looking back, I recollect she had very beautiful brown eyes.

3. With limiting effect: mere.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book I, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821 ↗:

     We have many examples in our daies, yea in very children, of such as for feare of some slight incommoditie have yeelded unto death.

• ilk, selfsame

• French: même
• German: derselbe
• Portuguese: próprio
• Russian: са́мый

very (not comparable)

1. To a great extent or degree.

   Synonyms: greatly, drastically, extremely

   You’re drinking very slowly.

   That dress is very you.

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546 ↗; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], OCLC 2666860 ↗, page 0091 ↗:

     Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully furnished, and was very clean. ¶ There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

2. Conforming to fact, reality or rule; true.

   Synonyms: truly, actually, authentically

3. (with superlatives) ngd Used to firmly establish that nothing else surpasses in some respect.

   He was the very best runner there.

• (to a great extent) ever so, main (dialectal), mighty, sore (archaic), swith (dialectal), way too, eminently

• French: très
• German: sehr, ganz, wahrlich
• Italian: molto
• Portuguese: muito; assaz (chiefly archaic)
• Russian: о́чень
• Spanish: muy

• German: wahrlich
• Italian: davvero
• Portuguese: de facto (Portugal), de fato (Brazil)
• Russian: са́мый