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as often as not. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
as often as not, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
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English
Pronunciation
Prepositional phrase
as often as not
- (idiomatic) More or less half of the time; on many occasions but not always; frequently.
1841, Charles Dickens, chapter 7, in The Old Curiosity Shop:"[T]hese old people—there's no trusting them, Fred. . . . [Y]ou can't calculate upon 'em, and even then they deceive you just as often as not."
1896, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Persons of the Tale”, in Fables:"I am a man that tries to do his duty, and makes a mess of it as often as not."
1910, H. G. Wells, chapter 7, in The History of Mr. Polly:[I]f he discovered a sale where there were books he would as often as not waste half the next day in going again to acquire a job lot of them.
1918, Edgar Wallace, chapter 7, in The Man Who Knew:The hall porter said that, as often as not, the flat was untenanted.
2012 October 24, Eamon Javers, “Spies and Co.”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 October 2013:As often as not, the perpetrators have been other Americans — motivated not by patriotism for a foreign flag, but by simple profit.
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