nothing if not

1. Above all else, as in He was nothing if not discreet. Shakespeare used this idiom in Othello (2:1): “I am nothing if not critical.” [c. 1600]

Example Sentences

Penelope was about to protest, for her penmanship was nothing if not neat, and she was positively meticulous in her use of the apostrophe—but at the word “dodo,” the children leaped up from their chairs and waddled clumsily around the office.

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The dress was nothing if not governessy, and brown as a nutshell, too, although it was too big to be crammed into one.

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“Simon Harley-Dickinson, at my service, indeed. It appears you have done me a great service, although, I assure you, I would have solved the riddle of the ink myself, eventually. I am nothing if not patient.”

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As well they should be, for in Miss Penelope Lumley’s day the London post office was nothing if not efficient.

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Yet true to his Ancient Greek lineage, this Oedipus is nothing if not paradoxical, suavely enjoying his privilege while brandishing his egalitarian views.

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