by a long shot

1. 1.

   by a great deal

   “he is the best by a long shot”

   “his labors haven't ended there--not by a long shot”

Questions about by a long shot

What does by a long shot mean?

by a long shot means "by a great deal".

Is by a long shot a common word?

by a long shot is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.