by no means

Language: en

Meaning: (idiomatic)Certainlynot;definitelynot;not at all.Synonyms:(archaic)by no manner of means,by no stretch,by no stretch of the imagination,in no way,never ever,never in a million years,not a chance,(archaic)not by any manner of means,not by any means,notby a long way,not in a million years,not in the least,on no account,under no circumstancesAntonyms:by all means,by any meansBy no meansam I suggesting that euthanasia should be outlawed, but rather that we should look at its inherent risks.Is that all you’ve got to say? ―By no means. Let me explain further.1625,Francis [Bacon], “Of Gardens”, inThe Essayes[…], 3rd edition, London:[…]Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret,→OCLC,page278:For theMaine Garden, I doe not Deny, but there ſhould be ſome FaireAlleys, ranged on both Sides, vvithFruit Trees; And ſome PrettyTuftsofFruit Trees, AndArboursvvithSeats, ſet in ſome Decent Order; but theſe to be,by no Meanes, ſet too thicke;[…]1711May 9 (Gregorian calendar), [Richard Steele], “SATURDAY, April 28, 1711”, inThe Spectator, number51; republished inAlexander Chalmers, editor,The Spectator; a New Edition,[…], volume I, New York, N.Y.:D[aniel] Appleton & Company,1853,→OCLC,page325:I was last night at the Funeral, where a confident lover in the play, speaking of his mistress, cries out—"Oh that Harriot! to fold these arms about the waist of that beauteous, struggling, and at last yielding fair!" Such an image as this oughtby no meansto be presented to a chaste and regular audience.Steele was quoting from a criticism of one of his own plays,The Funeral(written 1701).1782, [Frances Burney], “A Wrangling”, inCecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress.[…], volume V, London:[…]T[homas]Payne and Son[…], andT[homas]Cadell[…],→OCLC, book IX,page52:Cecilia, thanking him for the offer, ſaid ſhe meant novv to make her acknovvledgments for all the trouble he had already taken, butby no meanspurpoſed to give him any more.1879,Matthew Arnold, “A French Critic onGoethe”, inMixed Essays, London:Smith, Elder, & Co.,[…],→OCLC,page311:It isby no meansas the greatest of poets that Goethe deserves the pride and praise of his German countrymen. It is as the clearest, the largest, the most helpful thinker of modern times.1886,Gustave Flaubert, chapter IX, inEleanor Marx-Aveling, transl.,Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners[…], London:Vizetelly & Co.,[…],→OCLC, part I,page72:[S]he wasby no meanstender-hearted or easily accessible to the feelings of others, like most country-bred people, who always retain in their souls something of the horny hardness of the paternal hands.1891,Algernon Charles Swinburne, “Social Verse”, inStudies in Prose and Poetry, London:Chatto & Windus,[…],→OCLC,page105:The compilers of the volume may very naturally have been tempted to strain a point so as to admit some specimen from the hand of the most potent ifby no meansthe most perfect of English poetesses[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]: but in that case they would have done much better, in my humble opinion, to select the beautiful and simple memorial stanzas,[…]1915,W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter LXXIII, inOf Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.:George H[enry] Doran Company,→OCLC,page376:He wrote to her the next day, sent her a five-pound note, and at the end of his letter said that if she were very nice and cared to see him for the week-end he would be glad to run down; but she wasby no meansto alter any plans she had made.1952February,H[enry] C[yril] Casserley, “Permanent Wayfarings”, inThe Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press,→ISSN,→OCLC, page78:Every photographer of experience has his own theories and methods of working, but for the last 14 years I have used a Leica exclusively, and have found it best adapted to the somewhat exacting demands of railway photography, which isby no meansan easy branch of the art.2021July 28,Christian Wolmar, “Forgotten by the Railways, but Ripe for the Exploring”, inRail, number936, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire:Bauer Media,→ISSN,→OCLC, page35:Well, during our short staycation at Humberston Fitties, just south of Cleethorpes, we cycled through the very unspoilt Lincolnshire Wolds, which areby no meansflat and boring as conventional wisdom about the county suggests.

Examples:

EN: No... that is by no means everything.
ES: No, eso no es todo.
EN: But to prove to your relatives that, though you appreciate a good wine every bit as much as I do, you are by no means a drinker, you shall inherit my estate only if you comply with one condition.
ES: Pero para demostrar a tus parientes que, aunque aprecias el buen vino tanto como yo, no eres en absoluto un bebedor, heredarás mis bienes sólo si cumples una condición.
EN: Well, but by no means interrupt him.
ES: Bien, pero no lo interrumpa.
EN: - Oh, by no means.
ES: - De ningún modo.
EN: Either to fit your fancies to your father's will, or else the law of Athens yields you up, and mark, by no means may we alter it.
ES: O ajustar tu capricho al deseo de tu padre, o someteros a las leyes de Atenas, que yo no puedo suavizar.
EN: It is by no means hopeless.
ES: No es de ninguna manera así.
EN: No, this is by no means a simple case.
ES: No, este no es un caso simple.
EN: Gentlemen, listen to me It's by no means a mystery
ES: ♪ Señores, escúchenme ♪ ♪ No es ningún un misterio ♪
EN: But it was by no means an easy conquest.
ES: Pero no ha sido una conquista fácil.
EN: Hunter was poisoned with powdered opium and powdered opium is by no means tasteless. Well, then, mr.
ES: Hunter fue asesinado con opio en polvo, que no es insípido en absoluto.
EN: That's by no means clear to me.
ES: ¿A comparaciones? - Eso no está claro, Sr. Juez.
EN: And last, but, oh, my friends, by no means least, the figure we all had come to love,... the unfortunate, but enduring child of nature known as Huckleberry Finn.
ES: Y por último, pero, oh mis amigos, no por ello menos importante, la figura que todos habíamos llegado a amar, el desafortunado, pero endurecido hijo de la naturaleza, conocido como Huckleberry Finn.
EN: Watson I think you know me well enough to understand that I am by no means a nervous man.
ES: Watson creo que me conoce bastante bien como para entender que en absoluto soy un hombre nervioso.
EN: Oh, by no means.
ES: Por supuesto que no.
EN: That is by no means my objective, Count Bismarck... or I wouldn't be sitting here with you.
ES: Ese no es mi objetivo, conde Bismarck.... o no estaría sentado con vos

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).

Validation Count: 0

Sourced from Wiktionary