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far

/fɑɹ/adjective, adverb, verb, noun

far is an adjective meaning “Distant; remote in space” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-A-R and has one syllable (far), and it appears 316 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does far mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Distant; remote in space.

    He went to a far land.

  2. 2

    Remote in time.

    the far far future

  3. 3

    Long.

  4. 4

    More remote of two.

    See those two mountains? The ogre lives on the far one.

  5. 5

    Extreme, as measured from some central or neutral position.

    They are on the far right on this issue.

  6. 6

    Extreme, as a difference in nature or quality.

  7. 7

    Outside the currently selected segment in a segmented memory architecture.

    far heap; far memory; far pointer

adverb

  1. 1

    To, from or over a great distance in space, time or other extent.

    You have all come far and you will go further.

  2. 2

    Very much; by a great amount.

    He was far richer than we'd thought.

noun

  1. 1

    Emmer (a type of wheat), especially in the context of Roman use of it.

  2. 2

    UKA litter of piglets; a farrow.

noun

as FAR
  1. 1

    Initialism of floor area ratio.

verb

  1. 1

    rareTo send far away.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce far?

  • UK /fɑː/
  • US /fɑɹ/
  • Australia /fɐː/

Far has one syllable, split far in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-far.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-far.wav, En-us-far.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of far

  • farther comparative
  • further comparative
  • farthest superlative
  • furthest superlative
  • farthermost superlative
  • furthermost superlative
  • fars present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • farring participle, present
  • farred participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is far?

Far appears 316 times per million words in written English, the 298th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Far in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchlointain, éloigné, reculé (remote in space), extrême (extreme), loin (at a great distance)
Germanfern, weit entfernt, weit weg (remote in space), entfernt, weit (at a great distance)
Portugueselonge, distante (remote in space), extremo, extrema (extreme)
Spanishlejano, ulterior, postrero, postrer, postrimero, postremero (remote in space)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does far come from?

Inherited from Middle English ferre, fer, Old English feor, feorr, from Proto-Germanic *ferrai.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).