by halves

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English

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Pronunciation

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Prepositional phrase

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by halves

  1. (idiomatic, chiefly in the negative) Partially, incompletely; inadequately, halfheartedly, shoddily.
    • c. 1724, Punch's Petition to the Ladies, Jonathan Swift:
      Thou fool, I ne'er do things by halves,
      Farthings are made for Irish slaves;
      No brass for me, it must be gold,
      Or fifty pounds in silver told.
    • 1817, Jane Austen, chapter 6, in Northanger Abbey:
      I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong.
    • 1849, Washington Irving, chapter 26, in Oliver Goldsmith: A Biography:
      Johnson, who, as we have before remarked, rarely praised or dispraised things by halves, broke forth in a warm eulogy.
    • 1901, Ralph Connor, chapter 6, in The Man From Glengarry:
      She was too thoroughgoing to do things by halves.
    • 1989 July 30, Larry Rohter, “Theater: In Latin America, Headlines Inspire The Drama”, in New York Times, retrieved 5 March 2014:
      "When things happen to us in Latin America, it is never by halves. There is no equilibrium, so when it rains, towns get inundated and disappear, and when we have a revolution, half the population dies."
    • 2006 Sept. 24, Gareth Chadwick, "Far-flung business: Making all the right moves, The Independent (UK) (retrieved 5 March 2014):
      They don't do things by halves in the States. Whether it is cars, burgers or waistlines, Americans like to think bigger.

Derived terms

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See also

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References

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  • by halves”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.