quasi - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

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Learned borrowing from Latin quasi (“as if”).

quasi (not comparable)

  1. Resembling or having a likeness to the named thing.
    • 1998, The Pentagon Wars:
      So in summation gentlemen. What you have before you is a troop transport that can't carry troops, a reconnaissance vehicle that's too conspicuous to do reconnaissance, and a quasi tank that has less armor than a snowblower, god has enough ammo to take out half of D.C.
    • 2000, Henry Martyn Robert with Sarah Corbin Robert, Robert's Rules of Order, 10th revised edition, page 522:
      The presiding officer of the assembly does not appoint a chairman of the quasi committee, but remains in the chair himself throughout its proceedings.
    • 2012 December, S. Shunmuga Krishnan, Ramesh K. Sitaraman, “Video Stream Quality Impacts Viewer Behavior: Inferring Causality Using Quasi-Experimental Designs”, in CNN en Español‎[1], archived from the original on 23 January 2026, page 3:
      In a quasi experiment, the likelihood of a viewer of short video abandoning earlier than a similar viewer of a long video exceeded the likelihood that the opposite happens by 11.5%.

showing likeness

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/quasi
  2. ^ https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/quasi
  3. ^ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quasi

Learned borrowing from Latin quasi.

quasi

  1. almost, nearly, quasi
    Synonym: gairebé

Learned borrowing from Latin quasi (“as if”).

quasi

  1. quasi

Learned borrowing from Latin quasi.

quasi

  1. almost, nearly
    Synonym: presque

Learned borrowing from Latin quasi, initially officialese, later spreading into more colloquial registers.

quasi

  1. as it were, so to speak, effectively, essentially; used to mark a description as figurative, simplified or otherwise not to be taken as absolute, but illustrative of an important point
    Synonyms: gewissermaßen, gleichsam, sozusagen
  2. as good as, basically, virtually, more or less; used to describe a process or change of state that has not been technically completed, but the remainder is considered minor or a mere formality
    Synonyms: so gut wie, im Prinzip, mehr oder weniger
    Ich bin mit dem Studium quasi fertig.
    I'm as good as done with my degree.

Inherited from Latin quasi. The final -i seems to hint towards the word being borrowed or semi-learned, but it's not uncommon for Italian to shift final -e to -i in invariable words (cf. avanti, dieci, tardi, etc.).

quasi

  1. almost, nearly
    Synonyms: circa, poco meno che, pressoché, per poco non

quasi (invariable)

  1. almost
    ti presento il mio quasi marito
    meet my almost-husband

quasi

  1. (followed by subjunctive) as if
    Synonym: quasiché
    dà continuamente ordini quasi fosse lui il padrone
    he continually gives orders as if he were the boss

Univerbation of quam (“how, as”) +‎ sī (“if”) with clitic shortening of the first vowel and iambic shortening of the second.

quasī̆

  1. almost as if; like; as it were
    Synonyms: ceu, (perinde) ac sī, tanquam, velut, ut, sīcut
    quasi vērō nesciam! ― as if I don't know!
  2. (Late Latin) on the grounds that
    quasi praedam male divisisset ― on that grounds that he had poorly divided the plunder

Borrowings:

Learned borrowing from Latin quasi.

quasi

  1. almost, nearly

quasi (not comparable)

  1. pre-reform spelling (used until 1943 in Brazil and 1911 in Portugal) of quase
    • 1930 January 2, “Os novos medicos evangelicos realizaram um culto de Acção de Graças [The new evangelical doctors performed a Thanksgiving ceremony]”, in Correio da Manhã, volume XXIX, number 10741, Rio de Janeiro, page 7:
      Com a presença de avultadissimo numero de membros de quasi todas as egrejas evangelicas desta capital e de Nictheroy, o programma do culto teve inicio pouco depois das 4 horas […]
      With the presence of a very large number of members from almost all the evangelical churches of this capital and Niterói, the worship program began shortly after 4 o’clock.