what does to add the letters ISH to an adjective mean? Please, help me out.?

Question

Ex: biggish.........
If I say PARIS IS NOT EXACTLY A BIG CITY BUT IT IS BIGGISH COMPARED WITH THE OTHER CITIES IN EUROPE?

This BIGGISH in here, what does it mean?

Answer 1

It weakens the power of the adjective, makes it mean "a little bit ________ " Means that Paris may not be exactly big, but it is rather big--I know, doesn't make much logical sense.
If you have greenish skin, your skin has the merest undertone of green.
If you have reddish hair, your hair isn't exactly red, but it does have red highlights.
If you arrive late-ish, you are merely 5 or 10 minutes late.

Answer 2

Others have given good answers. Essentially, adding -ish
is like saying "sort of"...........as in "Paris is not exactly a big city but it is sort of big compared with....", etc.

I just wanted to add that the usage of this suffix is very informal and would not be appropriate in expository writing (unless of course informality was the point, as in dialect or written conversation), except in the case of color description. This point was implied in another answer mentioning eye color as "blueish green".

Answer 3

to ad "ish" means its almost that word.

as in your example "Paris is biggish" It means it is big, but not quite. So it is almost big.

Or if you was to say "Thats cool!... ish", thus meaning its kinda cool, but not completely.

If you get my drift? i hope this has helped.

Answer 4

biggish means 'rather' somewhat, not exactly small but not
exactly big for example (green, greenish).

Answer 5

ISH implies a little more or less than something else. For example my eyes are blueish green. So they are a cross between a little blue and a little green. Not both.

Answer 6

I think -ish is overused. it means that Paris is kind of big, but not real big. it means kind of but not quite.

Answer 7

It means it's not really big, but not really little. Just sort of, kind of big.