English Explanatory Dictionary

more often than not

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adv
  1. Usually; more than half the time; more likely to be the case than not to be the case.

Pronunciation

En-au-more often than not.ogg

Word forms

more often than not more often than naught more often than nought

Etymology

Origin obscure. Semantically equivalent to, and often understood as, an ellipsis of more often than not so. Possibly sometimes understood as more often than zero (see nought and naught), especially in reference to scales or gauges where mark zero represents the midpoint of measurement or frequency.

Synonyms

most of the time commonly frequently usually as a rule conventionally customarily in general generally habitually nine times out of ten normally oftest ordinarily predominantly principally typically
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