"but then" meaning in English

See but then in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Conjunction

Audio: en-au-but then.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{en-con}} but then
  1. (idiomatic) then again, on the other hand; used to show that the opposite viewpoint is possible. Tags: idiomatic Translations (then again, on the other hand): thế nhưng (Vietnamese)
    Sense id: en-but_then-en-conj-IQ-hxAxu Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for but then meaning in English (1.3kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "but then",
      "name": "en-con"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "conj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He may finish writing his novel next year; but then, he may never finish."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "then again, on the other hand; used to show that the opposite viewpoint is possible."
      ],
      "id": "en-but_then-en-conj-IQ-hxAxu",
      "links": [
        [
          "then again",
          "then again"
        ],
        [
          "on the other hand",
          "on the other hand"
        ],
        [
          "opposite",
          "opposite"
        ],
        [
          "viewpoint",
          "viewpoint"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) then again, on the other hand; used to show that the opposite viewpoint is possible."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "Vietnamese",
          "sense": "then again, on the other hand",
          "word": "thế nhưng"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-but then.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7e/En-au-but_then.ogg/En-au-but_then.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/En-au-but_then.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "but then"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "but then",
      "name": "en-con"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "conj",
  "senses": [
    {
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        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He may finish writing his novel next year; but then, he may never finish."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "then again, on the other hand; used to show that the opposite viewpoint is possible."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "then again",
          "then again"
        ],
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          "on the other hand",
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        ],
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        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) then again, on the other hand; used to show that the opposite viewpoint is possible."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-but then.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7e/En-au-but_then.ogg/En-au-but_then.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/En-au-but_then.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "Vietnamese",
      "sense": "then again, on the other hand",
      "word": "thế nhưng"
    }
  ],
  "word": "but then"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.