all but vs almost

all but

adv

  • Very nearly; everything short of. 

almost

adv

  • Very close to, but not quite. 

  • Up to a null set; except for a set of measure 0. 

  • Up to, except for a negligible set (where negligible is not universally but contextually defined). 

noun

  • Something or someone that doesn't quite make it. 

How often have the words all but and almost occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )