not exactly

Definitions

1. 1

   Not or no.

   • He is not exactly good-looking, but, on the contrary, extremely plain. He is not exactly good-tempered. He is not exactly steady or sober, or industrious, or even ambitious. He is, in fact, "ugly, irreligious, dissipated, ill-tempered."
   • "Those two," he said. "They don't seem exactly your sort." "you mean," said she, "they are not exactly yours."
   • Not exactly a red-letter day for gun safety.
2. 2

   Not quite

   Not quite; nearly.

   • But even in French they are not exactly what we want, not exactly the counterparts to the verbals like hunter.
   • For a start, as the title of his first collection of short tales suggests, they are not exactly ghost stories, although most involve characters who in their own particular way are haunted.
   • Once again, the boundary is not exactly correct. Some speakers would be better modelled by a somewhat lower boundary and others by a higher one.

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