above all

1. 1.

   above and beyond all other consideration

   “above all, you must be independent”

   Synonymsmost importantlymost especially
2. 2.

   taking everything together

   “she was first and last a scientist”

   Synonymsfirst and last

Questions about above all

What does above all mean?

above all means "above and beyond all other consideration". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for above all?

Close synonyms include most importantly, most especially, first and last. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is above all a common word?

above all is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.