too bad
643
3.3
- idiom
- /tuː bæd/
- Informal
:
qué lástima
- - How are you today? - Not too bad.
- I said 'too bad'
Well, if it made me look bad, too bad, because what he wrote was good.
- Well, if it made me look bad, too bad, because what he wrote was good.
- That it's too bad that she's, you know, so far away.
- But I find that to be too bad.
- And it was a fun movie Tombstone, but it but it's too bad it went the way it went.
- And yeah, it is too bad it's all online.
Examples
-
The restaurant was busy, but the food was not too bad.
-
Tomorrow will be interesting; it is too bad that it had to come to this.
Blog text (2) -
And the stand is not too bad itself actually.
-
It's not doing too bad so far actually.
-
You want to say, well, you know, it's OK, it's not too bad, stuff like that.
-
OK, that's not too bad for my first attempt.
-
So far, other than being caked up, not too bad, not too bad.
-
In many ways, it's too bad that it wasn't done long ago.
-
So Socrates seems like a not too bad place to start.
-
You know, though, it's too bad that all that excitement just seemed to disappear during the solos.
Academic text (1994)
Synonyms
∞
2.9
Shows that something is sad or unlucky
291
1.0
To show that something is unfortunate or disappointing
140
7.4
To show sadness or feel sorry about something bad
35
4.6
Saying that something is sad or disappointing
33
4.2
Causes people to feel sorry
1
9.1
A phrase people say to show regret about bad news
Antonyms
How Regrettable
- Informal
1
8.1
92
3.7
469
1.2
- Informal
643
3.3
- Informal
1
9.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
too + bad
The meaning 'that is unfortunate' follows directly from composing 'too' (excessively) with 'bad' (negative): something is 'too bad' = excessively bad/unfortunate. This compositional pattern is common and predictable for learners who know the constituent words, so the phrase is immediately interpretable at B1 level.
Etymology
Too bad comes from a simple idea: too means 'more than' and bad means 'unfortunate' or 'not good'. So people say too bad to show that something is really 'unfortunate'.