Other forms: nearest, nearer
Near means a short distance away. The shop is near, near the station, we are getting near. It works as an adjective, an adverb and a preposition, and that flexibility is its own difficulty.
The point learners need most: near is a preposition on its own, but close needs to — near the station, close to the station. Getting that pair right removes a great many small errors. Near also covers time (near the end of the year) and approximation (a near disaster, nowhere near enough). Note nearly, which is an adverb of degree meaning almost, and not the adverb of near at all: I nearly fell has nothing to do with distance.
1adjectivenearA short distance away.~2%
“The nearest chemist is on the high street.”
2prepositionspaceClose to something in space.~56%
“They live near the river.”
3prepositiontimeClose to something in time.~21%
“We will decide nearer the date.”
4adjectivealmostAlmost, or coming close to being something.~21%
“It was a near disaster and everyone knew it.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 14 sentences found in the wild and placed 14 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
near is a position in space or time.
Also accepted in games: close, nearby
Near came into English from Old Norse naer, which was already the comparative form — it meant nearer. English took the comparative as its base word and then built a new comparative, nearer, on top of it. Nigh, the older English word, is the one near displaced.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂neḱ- — to reach
Proto-Germanic
*nēhwiz — nearer
Old Norse
nær — near
Middle English
nere
English, today
near
Built from
From Middle English nere, ner, from Old English nēar (“nearer”), influenced by Old Norse nær (“near”), both originating from Proto-Germanic nēhwiz (“nearer”), comparative of the adverb nēhw (“near”), from the adjective nēhwaz, ultimately from Pre-Proto-Germanic h₂nḗḱwos, a lengthened-grade adjective derived from Proto-Indo-European h₂neḱ- (“to reach”). 2 Cognate with frr nai, noi, näi (“close, near”), stq nai (“close, near”), Dutch na (“close”), naar (“to, towards”), nds-nl nao (“after”), German nach (“after”), nahe (“near”), näher (“nearer”), German Low German nao, nå (“towards”), lb no (“after”), Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk nær (“close, near”), Swedish när, nära (“close, near”), Gothic 𐌽𐌴𐍈 (“close, near”). See also nigh.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA