Dictionary Home » The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms » too good to be true

too good to be true

too good to be true idiom

So excellent that it defies belief, as in She loves all her in-laws? That's too good to be true. This term expresses the skeptical view that something so seemingly fine must have something wrong with it. The term was part of the title of Thomas Lupton's Sivquila; Too Good to be True (1580).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.