очень

Russian

Etymology

Unknown. Often interpreted as inherited from Old East Slavic *очьнь (*očĭnĭ) from око (oko, “eye”); the semantic shift might be "visibly > obviously > prominently > very". The non-productive ending is similar to adverbs like вкривь (vkrivʹ), впрямь (vprjamʹ), встарь (vstarʹ).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [ˈot͡ɕɪnʲ]
Audio (file)

Adverb

о́чень • (óčenʹ)

very, much, very much

References

Vasmer (Fasmer), Max (Maks) (1964–1973), “очень”, in Etimologičeskij slovarʹ russkovo jazyka [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), translated from German and supplemented by Trubačóv Oleg, Moscow: Progress

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