let alone
21
3.0
- idiom
:
y mucho menos
- He can hardly afford a bicycle, let alone a car.
sanctions US soft power, let alone US hard power.
- sanctions US soft power, let alone US hard power.
- Which is that's not how humans, let alone lawyers, talk.
- How does less trust survive, let alone thrive?
- OK, no, no CRT type displays, let alone LEDs.
- How would we possibly even grasp its presence or its absence, let alone its determinateness?
- And there are very, very few proposals, let alone practical solutions for how we get there.
- When someone hates you, they don't hear what you're saying, let alone want to work with you on an issue.
- It's going to take thousands of hours to take this case to a verdict, let alone to appeal and beyond.
- My mother could never climb in that bathtub, sit down in it, let alone get out of it.
- The women had no assets, no savings, and they could not read nor write, let alone sign their names.
- This requires more computational power than MIT engineers can fathom, let alone produce.
- And I'm like, I fully did not feel like I was capable of walking, let alone lifting.
- It should have never come back to life, let alone come back to life as a criminal case.
- The CEO of Google does not recommend books to anyone, let alone like the people at rival companies.
Examples
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Yet, we have no effective, let alone comprehensive, legal framework to prevent or respond to these attacks.
Academic text (2016) -
Unconstitutional does not begin to describe this brazen corruption, let alone the national security threats.
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It's no longer about truth or even a good faith attempt to listen, let alone truly understand.
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And there are very, very few proposals, let alone practical solutions for how we get there.
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Too few men turn to their friends or partners, let alone go to a GP.
Academic text (2010) -
Gaining access to dementia services is difficult enough for paid care staff, let alone family carers.
Academic text (2010) -
Many of them don't even know what their pension system consists of, let alone what obligations they have.
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They don't have the capacity even to move themselves, let alone to decide for themselves.
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When someone hates you, they don't hear what you're saying, let alone want to work with you on an issue.
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Now the Leahys say they can't pay the rent, let alone repurchase the place.
Academic text (2007)
Synonyms
465
3.7
Shows that something is even more important than what was just said
77
3.9
Shows that something is even less likely or possible than what came before
How Emphatic
Surface Forms
Morphology
let + alone
The concessive phrase 'let alone' does not compose straightforwardly from 'let' (allow) and 'alone' (by oneself); its function is idiomatic, marking emphasis/contrast meaning 'much less' or 'not to mention'. A B1 learner who knows the individual words would be unlikely to derive this discourse-level function from the literal meanings, so it is not transparently predictable.
Etymology
Let alone gives a quick contrast: if someone cannot do an easier thing, they will almost never do a harder one. Because let can mean 'allow' and alone means 'by itself', the expression points out the second thing is 'even less likely'.