Word.ws English Dictionary

by half

by half prepositional phrase: by far; by a long chalk; to an excessive extent or degree, especially to the extent that it is negative, gets in the way, etc.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (colloquial) By far; by a long chalk; to an excessive extent or degree, especially to the extent that it is negative, gets in the way, etc.
    • Little Miss Smartyboots is too clever by half.
    • He and two friends were known as “the three pseuds” among the rest of the boys, who thought them too clever by half.2012 November 9, Decca Aitkenhead, “Robbie Coltrane: ‘I take no nonsense’”, in The Guardian

Questions about by half

What does by half mean?
By half means by far; by a long chalk; to an excessive extent or degree, especially to the extent that it is negative, gets in the way, etc.
What part of speech is by half?
By half is a prepositional phrase.

Words near by half in the dictionary

  1. by guess or by God
  2. by guess or by golly
  3. by guess or by gosh
  4. by gum
  5. by gummy
  6. by half
  7. by halves
  8. by hand
  9. by heart
  10. by heavens
  11. by hell

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: by half (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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