believe it or not
20
4.4
- idiom
- Informal
:
aunque no lo creas
- Believe it or not, you changed my life.
- believe it or not, every year
- happened, believe it or not
- believe it or not, still
Because in our current culture wars, Hegel has been, believe it or not, brought into them.
- Because in our current culture wars, Hegel has been, believe it or not, brought into them.
- He doesn't, you know, say whatever you want about that, believe it or not, but that is true.
- And when you follow that amazing things up, believe it or not, I've never felt more rewarded.
- And so I have, believe it or not, my first stem cell treatments coming up this spring.
- And I was, I was out the entire day, still having some visuals, believe it or not.
- Both sides claiming that they see some good news for their respective favored candidate in there, believe it or not.
- And believe it or not, procrastination, when you look at the research, it is triggered by stress.
- Jason, the Jason, the truth that that answer is believe it or not is to become more nimble and authentic.
- And the maddest thing though, most of the trouble I've read, I do me because believe it or not, I don't get in trouble.
- I read there were hundreds, believe it or not, hundreds of human rights supports on it.
- Actually, believe it or not, the difference out there is they're shooting and run away from them.
Examples
-
Believe it or not, I'm actually going solo.
-
Believe it or not: we live together and I see him nearly every day.
-
Nothing changes you, believe it or not.
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And believe it or not, I remember that hit.
-
And believe it or not, they had one copy of your People magazine left.
-
On what things he has tried to get faster starts: "Well, believe it or not, we work really hard at it."
Blog text (7) -
After all, women do know how to speak their minds, believe it or not.
Blog text (8) -
Yes, believe it or not, there apparently are gay men in the Catholic Church!
Blog text (8) -
Believe it or not, it's pretty difficult to let someone you care about die.
-
Believe it or not, I actually won first place in the contest.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
To show that something is really true even if surprising
3
4.4
Says that something is not expected but is true
How Ridiculous
288
4.4
- Offensive
- Informal
20
4.4
13
7.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally presents two alternatives — 'believe it' or 'not' — so its pragmatic meaning ('whether you believe this or not, here is a surprising fact') is directly derivable from the constituent words. This is a common, compositional discourse pattern (many languages have an equivalent like 'créalo o no' / 'créalo o no'), so an average B1 learner who knows the words will typically infer its use to introduce surprising information.
Etymology
Believe it or not may come from Robert Ripley's 'Believe It or Not' cartoons and shows, where he listed strange, hard-to-believe facts. Saying believe it or not before a story tells the listener to expect something surprising, so it means 'used to introduce something surprising'.