All right and alright

All right is an adjective or adverb.

All right as an adjective

We use all right as an adjective after verbs such as be, feel, seem or look, but not before a noun (predicative adjective). It means ‘well’, ‘OK’, ‘satisfactory’:

A:
How are you?

B:
I’mall right.

A:
Is everythingall right?

B:
Yes, fine thanks.

Was your meal all right?

Not: Was it an all right meal?

All right may be written as alright, but all right is more common:

There was an accident and the bus driver was injured, but all the passengers were alright.

All right as an adverb

We use all right as an adverb to mean ‘well’, ‘OK’, ‘satisfactorily’:

Jill is really worried about her driving test, but I think she’s doing all right.

A:
Is everything goingall rightfor you these days?

B:
Yes, business is good.

All right as a discourse marker

We use all right to show that we want to begin a new topic or a new action:

All right, can we start the music now please?

We also use all right to show that we accept a point of view, or agree with what needs to be done:

All right, you have a point but I still think we need to get more advice.

We can also use all right as a question to follow up a statement. This is informal:

A:
I think I’ll leave at 5. All right?

B:
Yes, that’s okay with me.