at any rate
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (Southern England): (file)
Prepositional phrase
[edit]- (conjunctive) In any case: anyway, anyhow, regardless; used to discard a previous thought or discount its importance.
- Synonyms: in any event, at all events
- Jim broke the window — or maybe it was John? At any rate, the window’s broken now.
- He's stinking rich — or, at any rate, pretty well off.
- 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01:
- The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He […] played a lone hand, […]. Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate—women were their ruin—but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.
- 1947 July and August, “Notes and News: Caledonian Reminiscences”, in Railway Magazine, page 256:
- At any rate, in my experience, they could run like the wind, but longer and heavier trains slowly but surely became too much for them.
- In any case: by any measure, any way one slices it; used to emphasize that a point matters no matter which instance is operative or how one looks at the situation.
- Synonyms: in any event, at all events
- At any rate, no aircraft can leave this hangar until no fewer than three inspectors have signed off on it.
- 1978, Daniel C. Dennett, “Where Am I?”, in Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Bradford Books:
- What moved from A to B at such speed was surely myself, or at any rate my soul or mind — the massless center of my being and home of my consciousness.
- 2008, Graham Oppy, David Dowe, “The Turing Test”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
- Why couldn't it be the case that there are intelligent things that are unable to carry on a conversation, or, at any rate, unable to carry on a conversation with creatures like us?
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see at, any, rate.
- Mr Chairman, I'd point out here that taxation without representation is an affront at any rate, low or high, but it is especially galling at the rate that Mr Smith proposes.
Translations
[edit]in any case — see in any case
Further reading
[edit]- “at any rate”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.