not to put too fine a point on it
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To speak plainly or bluntly
Literally: not to put too fine a point on it
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Not to put too fine a point on it, this was his love - nest where he used to bring Lucia. '
Kettering, not to put too fine a point on it, is the apple of her eye.’
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “not to put too fine a point on it” mean?
To speak plainly or bluntly Literally: not to put too fine a point on it
Is “not to put too fine a point on it” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.