English

Adverb

believe it or not

1. (idiomatic) You may not believe the following, but it is true.
   • 2001 Bryan A. Garner, Legal writing in plain English: a text with exercises, p. 108:

     That depends on how long the sentence is. Believe it or not, there’s a canon of construction about provisos, and the test is anything but clear: …

   • 2003 Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson, PC hardware in a nutshell, p. 230:

     One common cause of “flipped bit” memory errors is, believe it or not, cosmic rays.

   • 2007 David Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music, p. 165:

     The descending opening phrase of the aria is, believe it or not, Tatyana’s Fate theme from her Letter Scene, though now in a minor, not major key: …

Synonyms

• believe or not (less common)
• surprisingly

Translations