Word.ws English Dictionary

in all fairness

in all fairness is the alternative form of in fairness.

Meaning of in fairness

Prepositional phrase

  1. As a counterpoint; for the sake of balance; to lessen the harm.
    • Chelsea were given a debatable penalty for Eden Hazard to make it 2-1 in the first period of extra-time and it was another night of repeat offending from Costa. Mourinho, in fairness, focused on his team’s shortcomings rather than any misplaced sense of injustice and even called for Uefa to let...2015 March 12, Daniel Taylor, “Chelsea out of Champions League after Thiago Silva sends 10-man PSG through on away goals”, in The Guardian (London)
    Synonyms:
    to be fair

Questions about in all fairness

What is in all fairness the alternative form of?
In all fairness is the alternative form of in fairness.

Words near in all fairness in the dictionary

  1. in agreement
  2. in aid of
  3. in all
  4. in all but name
  5. in all conscience
  6. in all fairness
  7. in all honesty
  8. in all its branches
  9. in all likelihood
  10. in all modesty
  11. in all one's glory

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in all fairness (page history and authors); in fairness (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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