not nearly

not nearly

Not even close to; not at all; much less than or inferior to. The movie isn't nearly as bad as everyone is saying. They're not nearly paying me enough to have to deal with this.
See also: nearly, not
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

not ˈnearly

much less than; not at all: It’s not nearly as hot as last year. There isn’t nearly enough time to get there now.
See also: nearly, not
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • Close only counts in horseshoes
  • close only counts in horseshoes (and hand grenades)
  • horseshoe
  • almost there
  • out of commission
  • be on the tip of (one's) tongue
  • be on the tip of your tongue
  • blowhard
  • (someone) thinks (they) are so smart
  • at war
References in classic literature
Smooth-cheeked boys, some of them with faces of stone and mouths of sin, not nearly so pathetic as the grey heads, tried to find the girl's eyes in the smoke wreaths.
Goring is not nearly so pretty a little spot to stop at as Streatley, if you have your choice; but it is passing fair enough in its way, and is nearer the railway in case you want to slip off without paying your hotel bill.
The first stall was a large square one, shut in behind with a wooden gate; the others were common stalls, good stalls, but not nearly so large; it had a low rack for hay and a low manger for corn; it was called a loose box, because the horse that was put into it was not tied up, but left loose, to do as he liked.
"Oh yes!" cried Clara, expressing a woman's feeling of the point in question; "the history of a country is not nearly so interesting as that of a single family would be."
He was not sleepy and it was still not nearly morning.
At the laundry I was suffering physical exhaustion again, and physical exhaustion that was not nearly so profound as that of the coal-shovelling.
Thou lovest me not nearly so much as thou sayest; I know thou thinkest of soon leaving me.
This was one of the greatest things which ever happened for literature, for books then became much more plentiful and were not nearly so dear as they had been, and so many more people could afford to buy them.
The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed.
The farms were not nearly so well cared for here as they were farther back.
None of the mis-siles struck us, for Hooja's archers were not nearly the marksmen that are my Sarians and Amozites.
It is nothing so petty as lost wills or deeds of violence that brings them back, and we are not nearly so afraid of them as they are of us.
Aladdin,--that my dress is an inch longer than last year, and my hair different; but I'm not nearly a young lady yet; truly I'm not.
She is not nearly so dangerous in the open as when she has the dark to protect her.
The "calls" to preach, I am glad to say, are not nearly so numerous now as they were formerly, and the calls to some industrial occupation are growing more numerous.