2 ADJ You use the most to mean a larger amount than anyone or anything else, or the largest amount possible. □ The President himself won the most votes. ● PRON Most is also a pronoun. □ The most they earn in a day is ten roubles.
3 ADV [ADV with v] You use most to indicate that something is true or happens to a greater degree or extent than anything else. □ What she feared most was becoming like her mother. □ …Professor Morris, the person he most hated. ● PHRASE You use most of all to indicate that something happens or is true to a greater extent than anything else. □ She said she wanted most of all to be fair.
4 ADV [ADV adj/adv] You use most to indicate that someone or something has a greater amount of a particular quality than most other things of its kind. □ He was one of the most influential performers of modern jazz. □ If anything, swimming will appeal to her most strongly.
5 ADV If you do something the most , you do it to the greatest extent possible or with the greatest frequency. □ What question are you asked the most?
6 ADV You use most in conversations when you want to draw someone's attention to something very interesting or important that you are about to say. □ Most surprisingly, quite a few said they don't intend to vote at all.
7 ADV [ADV adj/adv] You use most to emphasize an adjective or adverb. [FORMAL , EMPHASIS ] □ I'll be most pleased to speak to them.
8 PHRASE You use at most or at the most to say that a number or amount is the maximum that is possible and that the actual number or amount may be smaller. □ Poach the pears in apple juice for perhaps ten minutes at most. □ …staying on at school for two extra years to study only three, or at the most four subjects.
9 PHRASE If you make the most of something, you get the maximum use or advantage from it. □ Happiness is the ability to make the most of what you have.
10 for the most part → see part ➊
SUFFIX -most
is added to adjectives in order to form other adjectives that describe something as being further in a particular direction than other things of the same kind. For example, 'the northernmost suburbs of Chicago' are the suburbs that are furthest north of the city of Chicago.
most|ly ◆◇◇ /moʊ stli/ ADV You use mostly to indicate that a statement is generally true, for example true about the majority of a group of things or people, true most of the time, or true in most respects. □ I am working with mostly highly motivated people. □ Cars are mostly metal. □ …men and women, mostly in their 30s.
MOT /e m oʊ tiː / (MOTs ) N‑COUNT In Britain, an MOT is a test which, by law, must be made each year on all road vehicles that are more than 3 years old, in order to check that they are safe to drive. □ My car is due for its MOT in two days' time.
mo|tel /moʊte l/ (motels ) N‑COUNT A motel is a hotel intended for people who are travelling by car.
moth /mɒ θ, [AM ] mɔː θ/ (moths ) N‑COUNT A moth is an insect like a butterfly which usually flies about at night.
moth|ball /mɒ θbɔːl, [AM ] mɔː θ-/ (mothballs , mothballing , mothballed )
1 N‑COUNT A mothball is a small ball made of a special chemical, which you can put among clothes or blankets in order to keep moths away.
2 VERB If someone in authority mothballs a plan, factory, or piece of equipment, they decide to stop developing or using it, perhaps temporarily. [JOURNALISM ] □ [V n] …the decision to mothball the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, for safety and political reasons.
mo th-eaten
1 ADJ Moth-eaten clothes look very old and have holes in them.
2 ADJ If you describe something as moth-eaten , you mean that it seems unattractive or useless because it is old or has been used too much. [DISAPPROVAL ] □ We drove through a somewhat moth-eaten deer park. □ This strategy looks increasingly moth-eaten.
moth|er ◆◆◆ /mʌ ðə r / (mothers , mothering , mothered )
1 N‑COUNT Your mother is the woman who gave birth to you. You can also call someone your mother if she brings you up as if she was this woman. You can call your mother 'Mother'. □ She sat on the edge of her mother's bed. □ [+ of ] She's an English teacher and a mother of two children. □ I'm here, Mother.
2 VERB If a woman mothers a child, she looks after it and brings it up, usually because she is its mother. □ [V n] Colleen had dreamed of mothering a large family. ● moth|er|ing N‑UNCOUNT □ The reality of mothering is frequently very different from the romantic ideal.
3 VERB If you mother someone, you treat them with great care and affection, as if they were a small child. □ [V n] Stop mothering me.
mother|board /mʌ ðə r bɔː r d/ (motherboards ) N‑COUNT In a computer, the motherboard is the main electronic circuit board to which the microchips that perform important functions are attached.
mo th|er coun|try (mother countries ) also Mother Country
1 N‑COUNT [oft with poss] Someone's mother country is the country in which they or their ancestors were born and to which they still feel emotionally linked, even if they live somewhere else. □ Dr Kengerli looks to Turkey as his mother country.