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to be honest

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Pronunciation

Phrase

to be honest

  1. (idiomatic, usually disjunctive) Frankly, honestly.
    Synonyms: TBH, tbh (initialisms); if I'm honest, in all honesty, I can't lie
    I don't mind, to be honest.
    To be honest, he has a bit of a body odor problem, but we haven't yet had an opportunity to tell him gently and privately.

Usage notes

  • Often elaborated into longer conventionally established collocations, such as to be perfectly honest with you.
  • In all forms (whether the base form or elaborated), a well-known piece of advice about this phrase is that overusing it undermines its purpose: if you have to tell someone that you're being honest, it tends to make them question your honesty more than they otherwise might. This advice is sometimes pedantically oversimplified into a hidebound notion that it is never a reasonable utterance, but an accurate assessment is that, as with most usage advice, context matters: being genuinely confessional has its places, in small doses. For example, there is sometimes the subtext of, Please excuse my sharing this thought, despite the general need to avoid oversharing, because the circumstances warrant its sharing.

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