adv.
In no way; to no degree. Used to express negation, denial, refusal, or prohibition: I will not go. You may not have any.
[Middle English, alteration of naught, nought. See naught.]
USAGE NOTE Care should be taken with the placement of not and other negatives in a sentence in order to avoid ambiguity. All elephants are not friendly could be taken to mean either "All elephants are unfriendly" or "Not all elephants are friendly." Similarly, the sentence Kim didn't sleep until noon could mean either "Kim went to sleep at noon" or "Kim got up before noon." • In formal writing, each part of the not only . . . but also construction should be followed with an element of the same grammatical type. Instead of She not only bought a new car but also a new lawnmower, one should write She bought not only a new car but also a new lawnmower; in the second version, both not only and but also are followed by noun phrases. Omitting the also tends to intensify the second part of the construction so that it no longer functions merely as a supplement to the first part: She is not only smart but brilliant. He not only wanted the diamond but wanted it desperately. See Usage Notes at only.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
