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I checked out its meaning on the web and the common one I have found is "speaking imprecisely", but instinctively I thought it would be like "almost", for example:

The task assigned is more or less over, only formatting is left to be done.

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That's close enough. – Bill Franke Dec 11 '12 at 7:29
more or less – Matt Эллен Dec 11 '12 at 8:36
Please read our blog post about how to write good meaning questions. – Matt Эллен Dec 11 '12 at 8:38
Logically, we shouldn't use it to mean almost as that negates the 'more' possibility - but we do. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 11 '12 at 10:12
@Edwin Ashworth: I see no reason to look at it that way. An expanded form might be [a small amount] more or less, in just the same way as give or take [a small amount]. I often hear/use plus or minus used in exactly the same way. – FumbleFingers Dec 12 '12 at 0:28

closed as general reference by Cameron, Matt Эллен, Barrie England, Rory Alsop, tchrist Jan 1 at 14:51

This question is too basic; it can be definitively and permanently answered by a single link to a standard internet reference source designed specifically to find that type of information. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

I would say it translates to roughly, around, or about a little better than almost. (When used for numerical estimates, roughly implies the number could be off by a little bit in either direction; while almost sometimes implies that, if the number is off, it's probably too low, rather than too high.)

Another relatively common way to say it is give or take:

I ran about 7 kilometers yesterday, give or take.

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up vote 2 down vote

Yes. According to Thesaurus.com, which says that the definition is "approximately".

Synonyms are:

about, almost, around, ballpark figure, bordering on, circa, close to, in the ballpark, in the neighborhood of, in the vicinity of, just about, not far from, not quite, on average, relatively, roughly, thereabouts, very close

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up vote 1 down vote

More or Less :)

They both refer to an approximation, but "almost" would serve better when something was not quite meeting a criterion (I almost made the bus, but had to walk home instead), while "more or less" serves better when something meets a criterion well enough that we can consider it to have done so (After trick-and-treating, we shared the sweets more or less equally).

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you know what I am a huge fan of recursion, this is going down as one of the examples :) – Joe Dimaggio Dec 11 '12 at 13:05

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