as often as not

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Prepositional phrase

as often as not

1. (idiomatic) More or less half of the time; on many occasions but not always; frequently.

   Coordinate terms: more often than not; see also Thesaurus:usually, Thesaurus:frequency

   • 1841, Charles Dickens, chapter 7, in The Old Curiosity Shop:

     "[T]hese old people—there's no trusting them, Fred. . . . [Y]ou can't calculate upon 'em, and even then they deceive you just as often as not."

   • 1896, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Persons of the Tale”, in Fables:

     "I am a man that tries to do his duty, and makes a mess of it as often as not."

   • 1910, H. G. Wells, chapter 7, in The History of Mr. Polly:

     [I]f he discovered a sale where there were books he would as often as not waste half the next day in going again to acquire a job lot of them.

   • 1918, Edgar Wallace, chapter 7, in The Man Who Knew:

     The hall porter said that, as often as not, the flat was untenanted.

   • 2012 October 24, Eamon Javers, “Spies and Co.”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 October 2013:

     As often as not, the perpetrators have been other Americans — motivated not by patriotism for a foreign flag, but by simple profit.

See also

• as likely as not
• even chances
• fifty-fifty

References

• “as often as not”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.