Perhapses

Part of speech: adverb

Definitions

1. A rare or nonstandard variant form indicating uncertainty or possibility about a situation or outcome; expressing doubt or a tentative suggestion regarding an event or action; used to imply that something might happen or be true without full certainty
2. Serving as an uncommon plural form of an adverb conveying provisionality or speculation about circumstances; presenting a cautious or hesitant stance on likelihood; used to hint at potentiality or conjectural scenarios
3. Functioning as an infrequent or dialectal term to denote chance or speculation concerning future occurrences; signaling a modest measure of doubt or probability; employed to communicate that a given statement or proposition is tentative or not definitively resolved

Etymology: "Perhapses" is a rare nonstandard plural of "perhaps", and its story is really the story of the word it is built on. "Perhaps" began in Middle English as "perhap", combining "per-", a preposition meaning "by" or "through", with "hap", meaning chance or coincidence. So "perhap" literally meant something like "by chance". Its Middle English forms "perhappes" and "perhappous" took an -s ending on the model of "parchaunce", the ancestor of modern "perchance", which shows that "perhaps" once sat in the same family of chance-words as "perchance". The plural has no separate history of its own. Because "perhaps" already ends in -s, speakers occasionally added a second -s to it, producing "perhapses". Such forms are rare, and they are not standard English, so dictionaries generally treat the plural as a marginal variant rather than a regular word.

Synonyms: maybe, possibly, conceivably, perchance, potentially

Antonyms: definitely, certainly, surely, undoubtedly, clearly