AT THE MOST

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does at the most mean? 

• AT THE MOST (adverb)
  The adverb AT THE MOST has 1 sense:

1. not more than

  Familiarity information: AT THE MOST used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AT THE MOST (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not more than

Synonyms:

at most; at the most

Context example:

spend at most $20 on the lunch

Antonym:

at the least (not less than)

 Context examples 

The interactions of cellular and molecular components and engineered materials — typically clusters of atoms, molecules, and molecular fragments — at the most elemental level of biology.

(Nanotechnology, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The team of scientists looked at the most harmful weather-related disasters — heat waves, cold snaps, wildfires, droughts, floods and windstorms — across the European Union, plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.

(Study: Climate Change Will Bring 50-Fold Rise in Europe Weather-related Deaths, VOA News)

The busts! You never can get those busts out of your head. After all, that is nothing; petty larceny, six months at the most.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For sixpence a day, at the most; while now you may walk across the country and stretch out either hand to gather in whatever you have a mind for.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Anything more monotonous and wearying could not be imagined, for, even at the most open places, I could not see more than ten or twelve yards, while usually my vision was limited to the back of Lord John's cotton jacket in front of me, and to the yellow wall within a foot of me on either side.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Under the influence of this delusion, she dived into the coal-cellar at the most untimely hours, and scarcely ever opened the door of a dark cupboard without clapping it to again, in the belief that she had got him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

These are not suffered to taste a grain of oats, except upon certain days, till eighteen years old; nor milk, but very rarely; and in summer they graze two hours in the morning, and as many in the evening, which their parents likewise observe; but the servants are not allowed above half that time, and a great part of their grass is brought home, which they eat at the most convenient hours, when they can be best spared from work.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I always say to her, 'you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irremediable, and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to place Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his life? If you had only sent him to Westminster as well as myself, instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt's, all this would have been prevented.' This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and my mother is perfectly convinced of her error.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him that a question or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a quick, impatient snarl in reply.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)