at any rate

English

Prepositional phrase

at any rate

1. (conjunctive) In any case, anyway, anyhow, regardless; used to discard or qualify a previous thought.

   Jim broke the window — or maybe it was John? At any rate, the window’s broken now.

   He's stinking rich — or, at any rate, pretty well off.

Synonyms

• at all events
• in any event

 

1. • 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01:

     The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He […] played a lone hand, […]. Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate—women were their ruin—but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.

   • 1947 July and August, “Notes and News: Caledonian Reminiscences”, in Railway Magazine, page 256:

     At any rate, in my experience, they could run like the wind, but longer and heavier trains slowly but surely became too much for them.

   • 1978, Daniel C. Dennett, “Where Am I?”, in Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology, Bradford Books:

     What moved from A to B at such speed was surely myself, or at any rate my soul or mind — the massless center of my being and home of my consciousness.

   • 2008, Graham Oppy, David Dowe, “The Turing Test”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

     Why couldn't it be the case that there are intelligent things that are unable to carry on a conversation, or, at any rate, unable to carry on a conversation with creatures like us?

Translations

in any case — see in any case

Further reading

• “at any rate”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.