Meanings
- conjunctiveIn any case: anyway, anyhow, regardless; used to discard a previous thought or discount its importance.
He's stinking rich — or, at any rate, pretty well off.
3 more examples
Jim broke the window — or maybe it was John? At any rate, the window’s broken now.
The Bat—they called him the Bat.[…]. He[…]played a lone hand,[…]. Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate—women were their ruin—but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.
1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01At any rate, in my experience, they could run like the wind, but longer and heavier trains slowly but surely became too much for them.
1947 July and August, “Notes and News: Caledonian Reminiscences”, in Railway Magazine, page 256Synonyms: in any event, at all events
- In any case: by any measure, any way one slices it; used to emphasize that a point matters no matter which instance is operative or how one looks at the situation.
At any rate, no aircraft can leave this hangar until no fewer than three inspectors have signed off on it.
2 more examples
What moved from A to B at such speed was surely myself, or at any rate my soul or mind — the massless center of my being and home of my consciousness.
1978, Daniel C. Dennett, “Where Am I?”, in Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Bradford BooksWhy couldn't it be the case that there are intelligent things that are unable to carry on a conversation, or, at any rate, unable to carry on a conversation with creatures like us?
2008, Graham Oppy, David Dowe, “The Turing Test”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophySynonyms: in any event, at all events
Synonyms & antonyms
prepositional phraseIn any case: anyway, anyhow, regardless; used to discard a previous thought or discount its importance.
prepositional phraseIn any case: by any measure, any way one slices it; used to emphasize that a point matters no matter which instance is operative or how one looks at the situation.
More synonyms by meaning
adverbused to indicate that a statement explains or supports a previous statement
adverbif nothing else (‘leastwise’ is informal and ‘leastways’ is colloquial)
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Cite this entry
at any rate. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/at%20any%20rate
“at any rate.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/at%20any%20rate. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “at any rate,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/at%20any%20rate.
Source: at any rate on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.