To a Fault Meaning
When someone has a certain good quality to a fault, they have an excessive or extreme amount of this quality; more than is normal or necessary.
Usage Notes
This idiom is also used after an adjective that describes a positive character trait. Generous is commonly used.
Sentence Examples
“He was generous to a fault. He once missed paying his own rent because he gave the money to a homeless person.”
“That’s why we came to see this man, Abel. Aways directly to the point and honest to a fault. — Love’s Abiding Joy (2010)
“Doesn’t make a bit of sense. Everybody liked him. He kept to himself and was polite to a fault.” — Blue Steel (1934)
“I know you disapprove, but Chambers is my old boss, and he wanted me, needed me for the job.” “What did he offer you? Promotion? Ambitious to a fault, eh, Annie?” — DCI Banks: Bad Boy: Part 1 (2014)
Origin
Used since the mid-1700s.
Oliver Goldsmith used ‘generous to a fault’ in The Life of Richard Nash, in 1762:
She was naturally gay, generous to a fault, good-natured to the highest degree, affable in converastion, and some of her letters and some of her letters, and other writings, as well in verse as prose, would have shone amongst those of the most celebrated wits of this, or any other age, had they been published.
