Both
conj, det, name, pron ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 (used with count nouns) two considered together; the two wordnet
- 1 Each of the two; one and the other; referring to two individuals or items.
"Both (the/my) children are such dolls."
- 1 Each of the two, or of the two kinds.
"Did you want this one or that one? ―Give me both."
- 1 Including both of (used with and).
"I (can) both sing and dance."
- 2 Including all of (used with and). obsolete
"[…] having much aduantage both in number, valure, and forepreparation […]"
- 1 A surname.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"When both girls told John they had feelings for him, he was in a quandary as to which girl he should be with."
Etymology
From Middle English bothe, boþe, from Old English bā þā (“both the; both those”) and possibly reinforced by Old Norse báðir, from Proto-Germanic *bai. Cognate with Saterland Frisian bee (“both”), West Frisian beide (“both”), Dutch beide (“both”), German beide (“both”), Swedish både, båda, Danish både, Norwegian både, Icelandic báðir. Replaced Middle English bō, from Old English bā, a form of Old English bēġen. A remnant of the Indo-European dual grammatical number.
Related phrases
More for "both"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.