Meanings
- UKcolloquialdialectalnot comparableat least
“I was lucky, just an arm (lost in combat), and the hope of a life, a normal man’s life, leastways”
2018 February 11, Colin Dexter, Russell Lewis, 01:20:14 from the start, in Endeavour(Cartouche), season 5, episode 2 (TV series), spoken by Gordon the usher(uncredited)3 more examples
“My advice, or, leastways, I should say, my orders, is,” said the fattest man of the party, “that we 'mediately go home again.”
1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “Looks after Oliver, and Proceeds with His Adventures”, in Oliver Twist; […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 137[…]so that I couldn't help telling her, sir, that in our country, leastways in Virginia (they say the Yankees are very pert), young people don't speak of their elders so.
1857–1859, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, chapter XXXIV, in The Virginians. A Tale of the Last Century, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1858–1859, →OCLC‘Cook-housekeeper jobs don’t grow on trees,’ went on the woman, ‘leastways not where you can keep a youngster with you.’
1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 32
Synonyms & antonyms
adverbif nothing else (‘leastwise’ is informal and ‘leastways’ is colloquial)
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Translations
Bulgarian поне
- поне (pone)at least
Cite this entry
leastways. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/leastways
“leastways.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/leastways. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “leastways,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/leastways.
Source: leastways on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.