an ounce of doubt
1
4.9
- idiom
- Informal
:
un gramo de duda
- I had an ounce of doubt about his story, but I wanted to believe him.
Examples
-
Okay, so in the end, just as I fully believed in the entire time and never had an ounce of doubt, the laptop is the better value.
-
He approached the deal with an ounce of doubt, unsure if it was too good to be true.
-
He also has no time for contemplation because he has not an ounce of doubt that the tigress represented in his brain by the outside stimuli is real and not just an effect of visual coding that he can interpret arbitrarily.
Academic text (2003) -
Although I trusted her completely, there was still an ounce of doubt in my mind.
Synonyms
∞
1.6
A feeling of not being sure about something
∞
2.7
A feeling of doubt about whether something is true
296
4.0
Not being sure about what will happen or what to do
2
3.8
A small feeling that something might not be true
1
7.9
A very small feeling that something may not be true
1
7.8
A feeling of doubt or not trusting something
A quiet feeling of not being sure about something
A feeling of not being sure about something
A feeling of doubt or low confidence
A state of not knowing what will happen
Antonyms
How Doubtful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a very small amount of uncertainty' is directly and compositionally derived from 'ounce' (a unit/measure indicating a small quantity) combined with 'doubt' (a feeling of uncertainty). This measure+noun pattern is a regular compositional device in English (and parallels exist in other languages), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
An ounce of doubt comes from a simple image: an ounce is a very small weight, so having an ounce of doubt means having only a tiny bit of 'uncertainty'. That's why it means 'a very small amount of uncertainty'.