Not butとは 意味・読み方・使い方

接続詞

not but

1. (now rare, archaic) Introducing a subordinate clause, frequently with that or what: "it is not that (the following clause) is not the case". [from 17th c.]
   • 1717, Alexander Pope, A Discourse on Pastoral Poetry:

     Spenser's Calendar, in Mr Dryden's opinion, is the most complete work of this kind which any nation has produced ever since the time of Virgil. Not but that he may be thought imperfect in some few points.

   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:

     [H]e did not fail to be extremely disconcerted at his first entrance into a scene of life to which he was totally a stranger. Not but that he met with abundance of people in the country […] .

   • 1768, Isaac Bickerstaff, Lionel and Clarissa:

     Not but your father has good qualities, and I assure you I remember him a very fine gentleman himself.

   • 1792, Jane Austen, ‘Lesley Castle’, Juvenilia:

     This was the only very severe thing I ever said in my Life; not but that I have often felt myself extremely satirical but it was the only time I ever made my feelings public.

   • 1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume II, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC:

     ' […] Fanny used to say that she would marry sooner and better than you did; not but what she is exceedingly fond of you -- but so it happened to strike her. […] '

   • 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter VI, in Great Expectations […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 94:

     I believe you they dread him. Not but what he's artful, even in his defiance of them.

   • 1911, Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes, Penguin Classics, published 2007, page 232:

     “[Y]ou don't believe in the actual devil?” “Do you?” retorted the woman curtly. “Not but that there are plenty of men worse than devils to make a hell of this earth,” she muttered to herself.