prawie

Prawie is a common Polish adverb meaning almost or nearly. It is used to indicate that something is close to a threshold or condition but does not fully meet it. Prawie can modify verbs, adjectives, or nouns, and it typically appears directly before the word it qualifies.

In usage, prawie precedes the element it modifies: prawie cała robota (almost all the work), prawie wszystkie miejsca (almost all the places), prawie gotowy (almost ready). It can also accompany numerals, as in prawie sto osób (almost one hundred people), and with phrases like prawie codziennie (almost every day) or prawie na pewno (almost certainly). With negation or in phrases such as prawie nic or prawie wcale, it conveys a sense of near non-occurrence or near absence.

Prawie is often contrasted with synonyms such as niemal and ledwie. Niemal emphasizes closeness in a stronger or slightly different nuance, while ledwie suggests something happening only by a narrow margin or barely. The choice among these terms depends on subtlety of meaning and emphasis in context.

Etymology of prawie is not completely settled in contemporary sources; it is one of the oldest and most frequent adverbs in Polish, with usage spanning everyday speech and literary prose. It is invariable and does not show morphological agreement.

See also: niemal, ledwie, prawdopodobnie.