Word.ws English Dictionary

by all accounts

by all accounts prepositional phrase: according to all available accounts or reports.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (literally) According to all available accounts or reports.
    • […]and also by all accounts of the surplus which shall from time to time be settled between the new company and the liquidators of the old company[…]1881, Francis Beaufort Palmer, Company precedents, for use in relation to companies subject to the Companies acts 1862 to 1880. With copious notes., page 512
  2. (idiomatic) According to everything that people have said.
    • The reputation of the elder Baron, although by all accounts justly merited, was destined to be completely thrown into the shade by that of his son[…]1878, Charles Dickens, All Year Round, page 161
    • […]that they say, by all accounts, it costs him great trouble to make, by rason that he must fast a long time, and pray by the day, afore he gets himself[…]1887, William Carleton, Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, page 302

Origin of by all accounts

* First attested in 1798.

Questions about by all accounts

What does by all accounts mean?
By all accounts means according to all available accounts or reports.
What part of speech is by all accounts?
By all accounts is a prepositional phrase.

Words near by all accounts in the dictionary

  1. by a time
  2. by a whisker
  3. by a whisper
  4. by a wide margin
  5. by accident
  6. by all accounts
  7. by all appearances
  8. by all means
  9. by all reports
  10. by Allah
  11. by an eyelash

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by all accounts (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-by all accounts.ogg.

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