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The paper aims to present the formal-syntactic and semantic properties of a Polish linguistic unit około ('circa, approximately'), classified by M. Grochowski as an adnumerative operator. Both in that author's studies and most dictionaries of Polish, two homophonic lexemes około are distinguished: one that requires genitive and one that does not govern any particular case. However, the approximator około has in all contexts the same semantic meaning of comparison of sets X and Y, where set X may be a little less, more or exactly as numerous as set Y. The entirely asemantic genitive occurs relatively rarely after this word, and is ignored by speakers, among others, in the process of seeking the proper quantitive characteristic of the subject of the sentence (e.g. after a 'thinking-pause'). In such contexts, the unit około is an 'operator' of the topic-comment structure. It can also precede an exact number (e.g. in the information on a box of matches: około 37 sztuk 'ca. 37 pieces'), and then become the comment-related unit not involved in the process of chosing the comment. There is only one approximator około which accounts for the presence of a speaker and the speaker's choices when building a sentence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]