not half bad
14
7.4
- idiom
- Informal
:
no está mal
- This place isn't half bad, now is it?
- not half bad, either
- not half bad, actually
- not half-bad stuff
And he said they were not half bad.
- And he said they were not half bad.
- OK, so we had one like dreadful, awful product and another one that is not half bad.
- Also, with the AI tools available now, you can probably enhance this to sound not half bad.
- They're trying like spread the fringe a bit just so I can actually see, but the wigs actually not half bad.
Examples
-
The movie was not half bad, even though I expected it to be disappointing.
-
It's not half bad.
-
But I will say that I thought our love life was not half bad.
Fiction book (1999) -
"It's not half bad, either."
Fiction book (1993) -
- Ooh, hey, that's not half bad.
-
The truth is, it wasn't half bad.
-
And come to think of it, Friday wasn't half bad.
Fiction book (1995) -
You're not half bad at it, S., he says.
Fiction book (1994) -
Besides that, hanging out for an hour with another book lover or two ain't half bad.
Blog text (14) -
You know, making a thousand bucks a month from daily blogging isn't half bad.
Blog text (34)
Synonyms
407
7.9
Used informally to mean completely or very much
134
3.0
Better than expected and quite good
5
8.8
To say that something is very good or pleasant, often in a sarcastic way to mean the opposite
Antonyms
How Good
∞
1.0
∞
1.0
- Informal
14
7.4
- Informal
134
3.0
- Archaic
1
6.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally composes as 'not' + 'half' + 'bad', which a learner can reinterpret as 'not (very) bad' and therefore infer a positive evaluation; many languages use similar litotes ('not bad') so the general positive sense is accessible. However, the colloquial nuance of being 'surprisingly' or 'quite' good due to the intensified understatement (the role of 'half' as an intensifier) is pragmatic and may not be fully predictable without exposure, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Not half bad began as a soft way to praise something: by saying not, half, and bad, a speaker does not fully call it bad. Because saying it is 'not half bad' really praises the thing, the phrase now means 'surprisingly good' or 'better than expected'.