very

Etymology

From Middle English verray, verrai (“true”), from Old French verai (“true”) (modern French vrai), from Early Medieval Latin vērāgus, from an alteration of Latin vērāx (“truthful”), from vērus (“true”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weh₁- (“true, benevolent”). Cognate with Old English wǣr (“true, correct”), Dutch waar (“true”), German wahr (“true”), Icelandic alvöru (“earnest”). Displaced native Middle English sore, sār (“very”) (from Old English sār (“grievous, extreme”)) (Compare German sehr, Dutch zeer), Middle English wel (“very”) (from Old English wel (“well, very”)) (Compare German wohl, Dutch wel, Swedish väl), and Middle English swith (“quickly; very”) (from Old English swīþe (“very”)). More at warlock.

adj

1. (literary) True, real, actual.
   The fierce hatred of a very woman.
   The very blood and bone of our grammar.
   He tried his very best.
   We're approaching the very end of the trip.
   1659, Henry Hammond, A Paraphrase and Annotations upon All the Books of the New Testament, London: Richard Davis, 2nd edition, The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, Chapter 3, verse 19, p. 517, […] they that think to be wiser then other men, are by so much verier fools then others, and so are discerned to be.
   I looked on the consideration of publick service, or publick ornament, to be real and very justice: and I ever held, a scanty and penurious justice to partake of the nature of a wrong. 1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made upon Him and His Pension, London: J. Owen and F. & C. Rivington, page 30
   […] : he has become a very democrat. He disdains not to be seen in the back-parlour of the petty tradesman, or the cleanly cottage of the intelligent mechanic. He raises his voice in the cause of progress; […] 1855, Chambers's Journal, page 257
   The country’s first black president, and its first president to reach adulthood after the Vietnam War and Watergate, Mr. Obama seemed like a digital-age leader who could at last dislodge the stalemate between those who clung to the government of the Great Society, on the one hand, and those who disdained the very idea of government, on the other. November 7, 2012, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times
2. The same; identical.
   He proposed marriage in the same restaurant, at the very table where they first met.
   That's the very tool that I need.
3. With limiting effect: mere.
   Given the degree of fear and loathing inspired by the very thought of a fat body in America today, it is important to emphasize that all of the medical information in the counterfactual world I have just sketched is itself quite factual. 2004, Paul Campos, The Obesity Myth: Why America's Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to Your Health, Penguin

adv

1. To a great extent or degree.
   That dress is very you.
   Not very many (of them) had been damaged.
   She's very like her mother.
   ‘Is she busy?’ ― ‘Not very.’
2. Conforming to fact, reality or rule; true.
3. (with superlatives) Used to firmly establish that nothing else surpasses in some respect.
   He was the very best runner there.
   This is my very own treehouse.