not exactly

Adverb

not exactly (not comparable)

1. Not or no.
   • He is not exactly good-looking, but, on the contrary, extremely plain. He is not exactly good-tempered. He is not exactly steady or sober, or industrious, or even ambitious. He is, in fact, "ugly, irreligious, dissipated, ill-tempered."1872 May 11, Rhoda Broughton, “"Good-Bye Sweetheart!" a Tale”, in The Athenæum, number 2324, page 586
   • "Those two," he said. "They don't seem exactly your sort." "you mean," said she, "they are not exactly yours."1911 August, May Sinclair, “Appearances”, in Good Housekeeping Magazine, volume 53, number 2, page 163
2. Not quite; nearly.
   • But even in French they are not exactly what we want, not exactly the counterparts to the verbals like hunter.1878, Robert Gordon Latham, Outlines of general or developmental philology. Inflection, page 78
   • For a start, as the title of his first collection of short tales suggests, they are not exactly ghost stories, although most involve characters who in their own particular way are haunted.2007, Andrew Caldecott, Not Exactly Ghosts, page i