guère

See also: guere

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French guere(s), from Old French gaire(s), guaire(s) (“much”), from Frankish *waigaro (“much”). Compare Middle High German unweiger (“not much”), which corresponds closely to the French construct. Romance cognates are Occitan and Catalan gaire, Italian guari.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡɛʁ/

• Audio (France, Paris)

  (file)

• Homophones: guerre, guerres
• Hyphenation: guère

Adverb

guère

1. (with ne) hardly, barely

   Je ne comprends guère le français.

   I hardly understand French.

   Je ne vais guère mieux.

   I’m not much better.

   Pour me réchauffer, il n’y a guère qu’un pot de thé.

   To warm myself up, nothing beats a pot of tea.

   (literally, “...there's hardly anything but a pot of tea.”)

   • 2008, Jean-Marc Moriceau, La bête du Gévaudan:

     Habitués à ne guère sortir d’un cercle de quelques paroisses environnantes, surtout en cette saison d’hiver, quelle raison auraient-ils eu à distinguer entre plusieurs animaux agresseurs ?

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

See also

• à peine

Further reading

• “guère”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Picard

Alternative forms

• dgère (Nord and Pas-de-Calais)
• djérre (Somme and Oise)

Etymology

From Old French guerre, from Early Medieval Latin werra, from Frankish. Compare French guerre.

Noun

guère f (plural guères)

1. (Nord and Pas-de-Calais) war