ten to one

idiom

informal

: very likely

Ten to one they'll lose.

Examples of ten to one in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web And certainly not by margins of nine or ten to one. —

Derek Newton, Forbes, 30 Nov. 2023 New York City’s right-to-shelter laws stipulate that the ratio of residents to showers in a facility must be no greater than ten to one. —

Eric Lach, The New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2023 Ayano Tsukimi’s dolls now outnumber the villagers ten to one. —

Fritz Schumann, Foreign Affairs, 29 Mar. 2015 This year the ratio has been ten to one. —

IEEE Spectrum, 14 Mar. 2023 And most people’s ideal ratio is something under ten to one. —

Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, 16 Feb. 2022 Moths species outnumber butterflies by almost ten to one. —

Shi En Kim, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 July 2021 In less than three weeks, his oddshas swelled from on in ten to one in four. —

Shawn Tully, Fortune, 2 Nov. 2020 Decrease ladder rows from ten to one, and increase ladder push-ups from one to ten. —

Hayden Carpenter, Outside Online, 4 June 2020

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ten to one.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.