{
  "id": "almost.approximation",
  "term": "almost",
  "sense": "approximation",
  "pos": "adjective",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 4,
  "arena": "almost",
  "domain": "approximation",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "not just exact but near",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "just.exact",
      "near.spatial",
      "exact.precision"
    ],
    "interaction": "exactness and nearness combine to form a state that is close to precision but not strictly exact",
    "novel_properties": [
      "proximity to exactness",
      "tolerance for slight deviation",
      "approximate alignment"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Hubble Space Telescope's mirror was polished to within 10 nanometers of the correct shape, but the error caused significant image distortion.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "In 2003, the Northeast Blackout spread because grid operators were unaware voltage levels were almost critical until cascading failure began.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    },
    {
      "text": "Water boils at 99.97°C on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau due to lower atmospheric pressure, almost but not quite 100°C.",
      "domain": "physics"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "just.exact",
      "note": "contrasts-with",
      "type": "contrasts-with"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "almost"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "factual",
      "note": "Added 'exact.precision' as it is conceptually required by the definition; adjusted interaction to reflect the combined role of precision and spatial nearness in forming approximation."
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-almost.approximation"
}