get at
verb
Simple meaning
Reach or gain access to.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
gehtatSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡɛˈtæt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Reach or gain access to
To manage to gain access to.
To understand or ascertain by investigation.
To attack verbally or physically; to annoy, bother.
To mean, signify, imply.
To begin working on or dealing with.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Reach or gain access to
Used this way, get at is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.