nothing to speak of

1. Not much, nothing worth mentioning, as in What's been happening in the stock market?—Nothing to speak of, or They've done nothing to speak of about publicity. This expression was first recorded in 1582.

Example Sentences

The view itself was nothing to speak of — dumpsters, power lines, the occasional good dog sighting — but the light was generous, forgiving, the kind that makes even a chipped coffee mug glow like stained glass.

From Salon

"I had no pain, nothing to speak of, and then 'bam, I had a mouth cancer diagnosis'," he says.

From BBC

The sight of actual human bodies gathered way up there only drew more attention to the otherwise uniform emptiness of the apartment façades — no laundry over the banisters, no plants, no weird window treatments, no tiny sparkle of television sets filtering through curtains, nothing to speak of whatever lives are bustling about next to the giant Nordstrom with the big ground-floor bathroom where I empty my DivaCup after fingering the 30%-off titles at Barnes & Noble.

From Los Angeles Times

“Horror. There’s nothing to speak of, especially in the center,” 76-year-old Lyubov Chudnyk said of Lyman, the town she has lived in for 42 years.

From Seattle Times

“Now, our generation, what have we done? What do we have? We have nothing to speak of,” he said.

From Washington Post