for all

English

Prepositional phrase

for all

1. In spite of, despite.

   For all his protests, he was forced to have a bath.

   • 1909, H. G. Wells, Ann Veronica:

     For all that she was of exceptional intellectual enterprise, she had never yet considered these things with unaverted eyes.

   • 2019 September 10, Phil McNulty, “'England horribly fallible in defence' against Kosovo in Euro 2020 qualifying”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     Maguire made an horrendous meal of the most basic piece of work to make it a treble helping of dreadful defending by England and for all the flair and fantasy of their attacking play there is no hiding away from the fact this is a serious weakness.

   • 1988, Michael Hopkinson, Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War:

     Collins' death can be put down to his devil-may-care attitude—his decision to journey through hostile territory in a large convoy, the inadequate choice of the members of the convoy, and the tactics he adopted in the ambush. For all the debate about ballistics and entry and exit wounds, and the use of powerful historical imaginations, it matters more that Collins was killed than how he was killed. Concentration on the events at Béal na mBláth has, moreover, often meant a failure to place them in the overall context of the war.

2. (mathematics, literally) Applying to every element of a set.

   For all $x$ in A, $x^{2}$ is even.

See also

• ∀

Anagrams

• all for, floral