anything but

anything but

English

Adverb

anything but (not comparable)

1. Not at all; quite the contrary (of).

   It wasn't cheap. Anything but.

   It started out as a lively party, now it is anything but.

   • 1887, Karl Marx, Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (translators), Das Kapital, Chapter 26,

     As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic.

   • 1890, Henry Cuyler Bunner, The Nice People:

     "They certainly are nice people," I assented to my wife's observation, using the colloquial phrase with a consciousness that it was anything but "nice" English, "and I'll bet that their three children are better brought up than most of----"

   • 1893, Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sinding (illustrator), William Archer (translator), Eskimo Life, Chapter II: Appearance and Dress,

     The pure-bred Eskimo would at first glance seem to most of us Europeans anything but beautiful.

Translations

not at all

Chinese: Mandarin: 一點也不, 一点也不 (yīdiǎn yě bù), 根本不 (gēnběn bù), 決不 (zh), 决不 (zh) (juébù) Finnish: kaikkea muuta kuin French: tout sauf Italian: tutt'altro (it) Portuguese: tudo menos (corresponding to “anything but something”), tudo menos isso (corresponding to “anything but” at the end of a clause) Russian: что угодно, но не (što ugodno, no ne) Spanish: please add this translation if you can