more often than not

1. 1.

   usually; as a rule

   “by and large it doesn't rain much here”

   Synonymsby and largegenerallymostly

Questions about more often than not

What does more often than not mean?

more often than not means "usually; as a rule".

What is another word for more often than not?

Close synonyms include by and large, generally, mostly. 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 more often than not a common word?

more often than not 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.