not bad

Idioms and Phrases

Also, not half bad ; not so or too bad ; not too shabby . Fairly good, as in Not bad, said the conductor, but we need to play the scherzo again , or The movie wasn't half bad, but Jerry wanted to go home , or Our garden's not too bad this year , or How are things going?—Not too shabby . All of the terms involving bad , which imply that something is less bad than it might be, date from the mid-1700s. The last variant, using shabby in the sense of “inferior,” is slang of the late 1900s.

Related Words

• adequate
• allowable
• bearable
• decent
• livable
• presentable
• respectable
• satisfactory
• sufficient
• sustainable