Meanings
- alternativeAlternative form of if ever there was one.
Discussing trout first, the Kern River in its higher elevations abounds in the choice golden, a trophy fish if there ever were one.
1966, Norman Phillips, “Kern River Isabella Lake”, in Map of Kern River, Lake Isabella, Kernville, Wofford-Heights, California (Kym’s Guide: Maps and Charts of Recreation Areas; No. 11), Los Angeles, Calif.: Triumph Press Inc., column 23 more examples
The Saint, is Ignatius Loyola, the famous Captain General of the Jesuits; a man of genius, if there ever were one;—the painter, Rubens; and this undoubtedly one of the finest of that master’s inimitable works.
1835, [Charles Badham], “Notes”, in Brief Recollections, Chiefly of Italy, by an Amateur, Glasgow: […] Bell and Bain, page 27[…] by convincing her that his dying father, Captain Wallace Bibbs—an upright man if there ever were one!—had left you to him in his Will.
1979, Frank Yerby, chapter 35, in A Darkness at Ingraham’s Crest: A Tale of the Slaveholding South, New York, N.Y.: The Dial Press, →ISBN, page 565That he had planned on being a medical ethicist but instead had been drawn into profiling by Garrett Woods, a Machiavellian man if there ever were one.
2011, J.T. Ellison, chapter 38, in So Close the Hand of Death, Don Mills, Ont.: Mira Books, →ISBN, page 296
Cite this entry
if there ever were one. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/if%20there%20ever%20were%20one
“if there ever were one.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/if%20there%20ever%20were%20one. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “if there ever were one,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/if%20there%20ever%20were%20one.
Source: if there ever were one on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.