Definition of "some"
some
pronoun
A certain number, at least two.
Quotations
Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.
2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18
An indefinite amount, a part.
determiner
A certain proportion of, at least two.
Quotations
Many people, especially some evangelical Christians, have been less than optimistic about the Potter influence.
2006, Charles H Lippy, Faith in America [Three Volumes] [3 Volumes]: Changes, Challenges, New Directions, Greenwood Publishing Group, page 73
Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.
2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845
An unspecified quantity or number of.
Quotations
The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. […] Their example was followed by others at a time when the master of Mohair was superintending in person the docking of some two-year-olds, and equally invisible.
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., pages 58–59
In the autumn there was a row at some cement works about the unskilled labour men. A union had just been started for them and all but a few joined. One of these blacklegs was laid for by a picket and knocked out of time.
1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLIV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 364
Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.
2013 July-August, Sarah Glaz, “Ode to Prime Numbers”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4
An unspecified amount of (something uncountable).
Quotations
It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, jump upon a tram, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room. Listening here was as pleasant as talking; just to watch was pleasant. The young priests who lived here wore cassocks and birettas; their faces were fine and mild, yet really strong, like the rector's face; and in their intercourse with him and his wife they seemed to be brothers.
1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, pages 130–131
A certain, an unspecified or unknown.
Quotations
By some paradoxical evolution rancour and intolerance have been established in the vanguard of primitive Christianity. Mrs. Spoker, in common with many of the stricter disciples of righteousness, was as inclement in demeanour as she was cadaverous in aspect.
1922, Ben Travers, chapter 4, in A Cuckoo in the Nest
Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet. Perhaps we assume that our name, address and search preferences will be viewed by some unseen pair of corporate eyes, probably not human, and don't mind that much.
2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18
A considerable quantity or number of.
Quotations
We drove back to the office with some concern on my part at the prospect of so large a case. Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., page 15
Approximately, about (with a number).
Quotations
What other natural experiments might we have to test climate sensitivity? Another one that happens every year is the change in seasons. Winter predictably follows summer, being some fifteen degrees colder in the Northern Hemisphere and five degrees colder than summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The reason the Southern Hemisphere has a smaller seasonal cycle is because it has much more ocean than land, […]
2003, Richard N. Cooper, Richard Layard, What the Future Holds: Insights from Social Science, MIT Press, page 129
the local police, who, with the investigator, reportedly placed a compass near the two signs that had rattled and found a deviation of some fifteen degrees. Placed next to the Renault in which they had come, the compass showed a deviation of only four degrees, but there was no deviation at all near the sign that had not rattled.
2023, J. Allen Hynek, The UFO Experience: Evidence Behind Close Encounters, Project Blue Book, and the Search for Answers, Red Wheel/Weiser, page 142
(informal) A remarkable.