best

UK/bɛst/US/bɛst/

adjectiveA14 meanings One of the most common words in English · #116 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: bests

Best is the top of the pile — better than every other one. Your best friend, the best seat in the cinema, the best chips in town.

It is the superlative of good and it comes with the: the best result, the best I could do. The same form works as an adverb after a verb — which one do you like best? — and as a noun: do your best, all the best, the best of the bunch. Two everyday phrases pull in different directions: at best sets a ceiling ('the film is, at best, watchable'), while make the best of it means take a poor situation and get something out of it. There is a verb as well, met in sport and old novels — to best someone is to beat them. And good, better, best share no letters at all, so the three have to be learnt as a set.

Definitions of best

1adjectivebestOf the highest quality; better than all the others.A1~59%
“This is the best bread in the village.”
2adverbanythingMore than in any other way, or more than anything else.A2~29%
“Of the three routes I like the coast road best.”
3nounfinestThe finest person or thing, or the greatest effort someone can make.A2~10%
“He did his best and came fourth.”
4verbbeatTo defeat someone in a contest or an argument.C1~2%
“She bested him twice in the same afternoon.”
synonyms: beat, outdo

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 20 sentences found in the wild and placed 20 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Phrases it lives in

at best — taking the most hopeful view, and no further
make the best of it — accept a poor situation and get what you can out of it
all the best — a friendly goodbye or good wishes

Where it comes from

Best was already best in Old English — betst, betest — from Proto-Germanic *batistaz. The whole north of Europe still says it much the same way: Dutch best, German beste, Swedish bäst, Danish bedst, Icelandic bestur. What the chain never passes through is good. Better and best grew from a different word entirely, which is why the three look nothing like each other.

Proto-Germanic
*batistaz
Old English
bezt
Middle English
best
English, today
best

From Middle English best, beste, from Old English bezt, betest, from Proto-Germanic batistaz. 2 Cognate with Scots best (“best”), cim peste, péste (“best”), Dutch best (“best”), German beste (“best”), Yiddish בעסט (“best”), Danish bedst (“best”), Faroese bestur (“best”), Icelandic bestur, beztur (“best”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk best (“best”), Swedish bäst (“best”), Gothic 𐌱𐌰𐍄𐌹𐍃𐍄𐍃 (“best”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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best in the wild

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

Definitions of best

1adjectivebestOf the highest quality; better than all the others.A1~59%

“This is the best bread in the village.”

2adverbanythingMore than in any other way, or more than anything else.A2~29%

“Of the three routes I like the coast road best.”

3nounfinestThe finest person or thing, or the greatest effort someone can make.A2~10%

“He did his best and came fourth.”

4verbbeatTo defeat someone in a contest or an argument.C1~2%

“She bested him twice in the same afternoon.”

synonyms: beat, outdo

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 20 sentences found in the wild and placed 20 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.