Meanings
- not comparableNot at all; quite the contrary (of).
It wasn't cheap. Anything but.
4 more examples
It started out as a lively party, now it is anything but.
As a matter of fact, the methods of primitive accumulation are anything but idyllic.
1887, Karl Marx, chapter 26, in Samuel Moore, Edward Aveling, transl., Das Kapital"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----"
1890, Henry Cuyler Bunner, The Nice People1893, 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
Chinese Mandarin 一點也不 /一点也不, 根本不
- 一點也不 /一点也不 (yīdiǎn yě bù)not at all
- 根本不 (gēnběn bù)not at all
- 決不 /决不 (juébù)not at all
Finnish kaikkea muuta kuin
- kaikkea muuta kuinnot at all
French tout sauf
- tout saufnot at all
Italian tutt'altro
- tutt'altronot at all
Portuguese tudo menos, tudo menos isso
- tudo menosnot at all
- tudo menos issonot at all
Romanian deloc, opusul
- delocnot at all
- opusulnot at all
- orice altcevanot at all
Russian что угодно, но не
- что угодно, но не (što ugodno, no ne)not at all
Cite this entry
anything but. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/anything%20but
“anything but.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/anything%20but. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “anything but,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/anything%20but.
Source: anything but on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.