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about to
- (idiomatic, with infinitive verb) Indicates something that will happen very soon; indicates action that is imminent.
- He's standing at the edge, and I think he's about to jump.
- She seemed about to say something.
- 1769, King James Bible, Oxford Standard text, Acts of the Apostles, xviii, 14
- And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you:
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.
- (as negative 'not about to', informal, originally US, Canada) Indicates that one has no intention of doing the stated thing at any time in the future.
- I'm not about to let the lockdown stop me from going to the beach every day.
- I'm not about to wander around at night to find it.
- (obsolete in affirmative) Indicates that one is preparing or planning to do the stated thing at some time in the future, not necessarily imminently. [from ca. 1150—1350 to late 18th c.[1]]
indicating imminence
- Albanian: please add this translation if you can
- Arabic: عَلَى وَشْك (ʕalā wašk) (followed by a verbal noun in the definite form)
- Armenian: պատրաստվել (hy) (patrastvel)
- Burmese: please add this translation if you can
- Chinese:
- Eastern Min: 欲 (buóh)
- Hokkien: 欲 (zh-min-nan) (beh)
- Mandarin: (for both forms, particle 了 (le) is used after verb) 就要 (zh) (jiùyào), 快要 (zh) (kuàiyào), 剛要/刚要 (gāngyào)
- Cornish: parys dhe
- Danish: være ved at (be about to)
- Dutch: op het punt staan (om) te
- Esperanto: (expressed by the future participle of the verb)
- Finnish: fifth infinitive of the verb (different grammatical structure; see usage example in tekemäisillään)
- French: sur le point de (fr), aller (fr) (auxiliary verb ‘to be about to’)
- Galician: a punto de (gl)
- Georgian: თითქმის მზად (titkmis mzad)
- German: gleich (de) (adverb modifying the verb), wollen (de) (auxiliary verb ‘to be about to’)
- Greek:
- Ancient Greek: μέλλω (méllō)
- Hebrew: עמד ל־ m (amád l-)
- Hungarian: készül (hu), szándékában áll
- Indonesian: hampir saja
- Irish: ar tí
- Old Irish: fri
- Italian: in procinto di (it) (followed by infinitive), sul punto di (it) (+ inf.), stare per (it) (+ inf.)
- Japanese: (after verbs in the basic form) ... ところ (ja) (...tokoro), まさに...しようとしている (masa ni ... shiyō to shite iru)
- Khmer: ស្ទើរតែ (stəə tae)
- Korean: (으)려고 하다 ((eu)ryeogo hada), (please verify) 막...하려고 하다 (mak...haryeogo hada)
- Kurdish:
- Northern Kurdish: hema hema (ku), hema bêje (ku)
- Lao: please add this translation if you can
- Latin: (expressed by the future participle of the verb)
- Latvian: please add this translation if you can
- Lithuanian: ruoštis (verb 'prepare to' + inf.), ketinti (verb 'intend to, be about to' + inf.), tuoj (adverb 'at once'), greitai (adverb 'soon')
- Maori: whano, hono
- Mongolian: please add this translation if you can
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: være i ferd med å (+ inf.)
- Occitan: al mand de
- Polish: zaraz (pl), właśnie (pl)
- Portuguese: no limiar de, prestes a, a ponto de (pt)
- Russian: собира́ться (ru) (sobirátʹsja)
- Sardinian: amega
- Scottish Gaelic: an impis
- Spanish: a punto de (es)
- Tày: ái
- Thai: กำลังจะ (gam-lang jà)
- Tibetan: ཁད (khad), verb + ལ་ཁད (la khad), verb + འགྲོའོ ('gro'o)/གྲབས (grabs) (colloquial/literary) + existential auxiliary ཡོད (yod)/ཡོད་རེད (yod red)/འདུག ('dug) (egophoric/assertive/testimonial), verb + ཆོག་ཆོག (chog chog) (in the sense of readiness or preparedness)
- Turkish: üzere (tr)
- Vietnamese: sắp (vi)
- Welsh: ar (cy), ar fin
- Yiddish: האַלטן בײַם (haltn baym)
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- “about to”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- ^ Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief, William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “about to”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 7.