all things to all people
3
8.4
- idiom
:
todo para todos
- American universities have tried unsuccessfully to be all things to all people.
Don't feel like you need to be all things to all people.
- Don't feel like you need to be all things to all people.
- Explain that that I need to be all things to all people, that I need to wear every hat all at once.
Examples
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You can't be all things to all people.
Blog text (28) -
For too long, community colleges have been unfocused, trying to "be all things to all people" without sufficient financial state support (Katsinas & Hardy, in press).
Academic text (2012) -
You can be all things to all people if you choose to be.
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It's humanly impossible to be all things to all people.
Blog text (22) -
You admit to that, and I fully support your rationale that you should not be all things to all people.
Blog text (13) -
As bloggers, we also have to fight the urge to be all things to all people, too.
Blog text (3) -
Many women, but not all, also carry the weight of being all things to all people, such as mother, wife, boss, housekeeper, cook, and much more.
Blog text (20) -
Although community colleges have long been seen as being all things to all people, they need to be more focused on their core missions and direct resources to fund those missions so that the quality of outcomes can be improved.
Academic text (2012) -
By attempting to be all things to all people, large-scale universities have allowed their most important business—undergraduate education—to be seriously eroded.
Academic text (1996) -
Politicians are often criticized for trying to be all things to all people, leading to unmet expectations.
Antonyms
How Accommodating
3
8.4
17
4.8
155
3.4
118
4.3
11
4.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
all + thing + to + all + people
The literal parts 'all things' + 'to' + 'all people' yield a compositional sense of 'everything for everyone', so a learner could infer a rough meaning. However, the idiomatic/pragmatic sense of "trying to please or satisfy everyone (often unrealistically)" and the evaluative nuance are not fully predictable from the words alone, so prior exposure helps.
Etymology
All things to all people comes from a line in the Bible where Paul said he tried to be all things for all people, changing himself to reach different groups. So, it now means 'trying to please or satisfy everyone', often in a not realistic way.