Word.ws English Dictionary

not to say

not to say conjunction: even; perhaps; almost.

Conjunction

not to say

  1. Even; perhaps; almost.
    • At first Marc was somewhat shocked, then he burst out laughing and finally came to the conclusion that actually it was all rather sad, not to say stupid.c. 1962, Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, “Wake of the Waves”, in Deborah A. Starr, Sasson Somekh, editors, Mongrels Or Marvels, Stanford University Press, published 2011, →ISBN, page 145

Phrase

not to say

  1. Used to clarify a statement: not intended to mean.
    • “Without an engaged audience, there’s no route to stardom.” ¶ That’s not to say that Sophie thinks the internet celebrity is dead. They may just have to work a little harder for it.2024 June 26, Stephanie McNeal, “Influencers Aren’t Getting Famous Like They Used To”, in Glamour

Questions about not to say

What does not to say mean?
Not to say means even; perhaps; almost.
What part of speech is not to say?
Not to say can be a conjunction or a phrase.

Words near not to say in the dictionary

  1. not to brag
  2. not to mention
  3. not to put a tooth in it
  4. not to put too fine a point on it
  5. not to put too fine a word on it
  6. not to say
  7. not to speak of
  8. not to worry
  9. not touch with a barge pole
  10. not touch with a ten-foot pole
  11. not up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: not to say (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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Cite this entry: “not to say.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/not_to_say. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.