TERMIUM Plus®

The Government of Canada’s terminology and linguistic data bank.

AGAINST ALL ODDS [1 record]

Record 1 2022-09-06

English

Subject field(s)
  • Idiomatic Expressions
DEF

Despite seemingly insurmountable opposition or probability.

CONT

If you do or achieve something against (all) the odds/against all odds, you do or achieve it although there were a lot of problems and you were not likely to succeed ...

French

Domaine(s)
  • Expressions idiomatiques
DEF

Malgré ce à quoi on s'attendait.

CONT

Contre toute attente, ce film a remporté un grand succès.

Spanish

Campo(s) temático(s)
  • Expresiones idiomáticas
OBS

contra todo pronóstico: La Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundéu BBVA), con el asesoramiento de la Real Academia Española, indica que la construcción adecuada para referirse a que ha sucedido algo que era improbable es "contra todo pronóstico", "no contra pronóstico". [...] Según indica la Gramática de la lengua española, "contra todo pronóstico" es una locución que sigue el esquema "preposición + todo + sustantivo", al igual que otras como "a toda vela" o "de toda índole". No es adecuado, por tanto, omitir la palabra todo en esta expresión.

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