too good to be true
47
5.9
- idiom
- Informal
:
demasiado bueno para ser verdad
- When I found an apartment for such a low price, I thought it was too good to be true.
- sounds too good to be true
- probably too good to be true
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
- If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
- And I know it seems too good to be true right now.
- If something sounds too good to be true, you know the saying it probably is.
- It's almost like this guy's too good to be true.
- But it's just, you know, some things are too good to be true.
- And yeah, again, it sounds too good to be true.
- Honestly, it was too good to be true.
- But my point is this is too good to be true.
- On that note, Speaking of things that are too good to be true, What?
- And I remember asking them, guys, this all seems too good to be true.
- But you know, you've heard the saying sometimes it's too good to be true.
- He's been nothing but good and now it's like, oh, he's too good to be true.
- Sometimes these things that seem too good to be true can be that's that.
Examples
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Long story short, if it seems too good to be true, it's probably a scam.
Blog text (18) -
Well, it was too good to be true.
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If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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If it's too good to be true, it is.
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But if something seems too good to be true, like this one, it probably is.
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A lot of times when things seem too good to be true, they just clearly are.
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If something sounds too good to be true, you know the saying it probably is.
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And I know it seems too good to be true right now.
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I knew it was too good to be true.
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In her experience, if something seemed too good to be true, it usually was.
Fiction book (1995)
Synonyms
7
7.5
Seeming to be true but maybe not real
Presented as real but actually fake
Antonyms
How Believable
267
4.2
129
7.2
300
2.7
- Informal
47
5.9
432
4.9
∞
1.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the parts: 'too' (excessively) + 'good' (very positive) + 'to be true' (to actually be real), yielding the interpretation 'so good that it is unlikely to be true' or causes suspicion. This is a regular compositional pattern (too ADJ to be VERB) that is cross-linguistically common and should be inferable by a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.
Etymology
Too good to be true creates a simple picture: something is so good it seems impossible to be true, like a prize that sounds perfect but feels fake. That's why we say it when we cannot 'believe' something or we feel 'doubt'.