not all it’s cracked up to be

not all it’s cracked up to be

Meaning

• Not as good as people say it is.
• When you say “not all it’s cracked up to be,” you mean that you expected better than what you saw in someone or something.
• It means that something or someone didn’t meet your expectations, so you overrated that person or something.

Examples in Sentences

1. The highly ranked institutions in Boston aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
2. Everyone in our school was talking about the new phone on the market, and I felt like I was missing out a lot without that phone, so I decided to purchase it. But, to my surprise, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
3. My friend couldn’t stop hyping about the movie he watched over the weekend. So after school, I bought the movie and watched it overnight, and I realized that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
4. People have been talking day and night about our neighboring school’s outstanding performance. After the end of the year exam, we all realized it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, for we had performed better than them.

Origin

The idiom, “not all it’s cracked up to be,” originated from the archaic meaning of the word “crack,” which means to talk, to or to give praises to something or someone. The idiom was commonly used in the late 1700s and early 1800s. If we replace the word crack with its meaning in the phrase, we get “not all it’s talked about.”

See also: up to the mark

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