By All Accounts

Also: According to all accounts

Meaning of Idiom

By all accounts: Based on the opinion of most people; according to what everyone is saying; according to all available reports or information. ¹Kirkpatrick, Elizabeth M. The Wordsworth Dictionary of Idioms. Ware: Wordsworth, 1995.

Usage

“By all accounts, George is a trustworthy fellow.”

“It may not be a good time to sell your home. By all accounts, the housing market is down.”

Origin

Used since the late 1700’s.

Here, account is used to mean “a particular report or a description of something” and by is used to mean “according to,” so that by all accounts means the same as “according to all reports or descriptions.” ²Ammer, Christine. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.

More Idioms Starting with B

• Be in Someone’s Hair
• Beat a Dead Horse
• Be a 10, to
• Buck For Something
• Bottomless Pit

More Account Idioms

• There’s No Accounting for Tastes
• Call to Account

More All Idioms

• All Tuckered Out
• All Hell Breaks Loose
• All of a Sudden
• After All
• Not For All the Tea in China
• All That Glitters Is Not Gold

More By Idioms

• Swing By
• Run By
• Run Something By Me Again
• Run Something By Someone
• By and Large
• Get By, to