above all

American  

[uh-buhv awl] / əˈbʌv ˈɔl /

idiom

1. most important of all; before everything else; chiefly.

   Above all, the little girl wanted a piano.

   He said that, above all else, he was a dad of two young children.

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above all More Idioms  

1. More than anything else, as in A winter hike calls for good equipment, but above all it requires careful planning. This phrase first appears in William Langland's Piers Ploughman (1377), in which the narrator exhorts readers to love the Lord God above all. Also see first and last.

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Etymology

Origin of above all

First recorded in 1350–1400

Example Sentences

He became a reader, then a writer, and above all a collector and seller of books.

From The Wall Street Journal

They also should begin now to revise their procedures for the Fifth Edition—above all by commissioning a chapter on the irreproducibility crisis.

From The Wall Street Journal

I am still praying for you and your family above all else.”

From Los Angeles Times

Then a prison boredom—which I soon learned to fear above all else— settled over the cell.

From Literature

But Guardiola has often seemed to covet the Champions League above all else and there will likely be frustration that the competition has brought him more anguish than joy in the past 10 years.

From BBC