of all places

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

used to express surprise at something happening in a particular location

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

được dùng để thể hiện sự ngạc nhiên tại một địa điểm cụ thể

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: in all locations
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

I ran into my old friend of all places at the grocery store

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

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 “of all places” mean?

used to express surprise at something happening in a particular location Literally: in all locations

Is “of all places” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.