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Glite Dictionary
🚫 Not at any cost 🚫 Never, no matter what
for all the world

for all the world

1 7.9
Refuse to do something no matter what happens
  • idiom
translation icon : por nada del mundo
  • I wouldn't harm you for all the world.

Examples

  • I wouldn't harm you for all the world.

  • Ultimately, they can only serve to upset him. "I would not do that for all the world." "Maester," and she came down the last step, standing eye to eye with him, "I think there is very little you would not do for all the world."

    Fiction book (2001)

  • She looked for all the world like someone who had absolutely nothing to hide.

  • When Betty Currie became the object of a terrifying media scrum last month, after testifying before Kenneth Starr's grand jury in Washington, she looked for all the world like an innocent victim caught in the teeth of scandal.

Synonyms

for love or money
vsfor all the world
  • Informal
6.6

You cannot do it even for a large reward

covers refusal even if events change or other things occur

Antonyms

willingly
119 1.9

Doing something because you want to and not because you are forced

Surface Forms

for all the world positive

Morphology

for + all + the + world

The phrase literally combines 'for' + 'all' + 'the world', so a learner can infer an emphatic meaning of totality (i.e., 'for the whole world'), but its conventional use — especially in negative contexts to mean 'under no circumstances' or 'not for anything' — is idiomatic and relies on pragmatic knowledge rather than simple composition. Because the connection to the parts is partly clear but the specific negative/emphatic usage is not fully predictable, it is best classified as semi-transparent.

Etymology

For all the world paints a clear image: imagine the whole world, every person and place, asking you to do something and you still refuse. So when you say for all the world, you mean 'under any circumstances'.