How to Use at best in a Sentence

at best

phrase

• For years, testing was spotty at best, and doctors often weren’t aware of the syndrome.
  — Burkhard Bilger, New Yorker, 29 June 2026
• Merlin Rohl has been trialled there in pre-season games, but that looks like a partial fit at best.
  — Luke Bosher, New York Times, 31 July 2026
• Most highway expansion projects are justified on travel time savings that are at best short lived.
  — Pete Harrison, Hartford Courant, 6 July 2026
• Conventional rules are at best just that, conventional; at worst, bad advice.
  — Forbes.com, 23 July 2026
• Policy proposals such as raising the minimum wage can have a modest impact, at best, on the wealth gap.
  — Peter Georgescu, Forbes.com, 21 July 2026
• His work habits are inconsistent at best, and his lack of follow-through directly affects my ability to do my job well.
  — Harriette Cole, Mercury News, 24 July 2026
• Players, coaches, and analysts all agreed that the red card was harsh at best, and inaccurately given at worst.
  — Ian Miller Outkick, FOXNews.com, 6 July 2026
• To think that risk disappears when hiring an expert is, at best, naïve and, at worst, strategically negligent.
  — Vicente Pava, Forbes.com, 2 July 2026
• The original decision to hand Baloguin a red card was, at best, terrible.
  — Mac Engel july 5, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 5 July 2026
• Disenfranchising or, at best, confusing their voters risks their own electoral success, too.
  — Sorelle Wyckoff Gaynor, The Conversation, 17 July 2026
• Collecting bureaucrats’ signatures is at best a distraction from those efforts.
  — Editorial, Boston Herald, 16 July 2026
• Five-time World Cup winners Brazil have the attackers for it, but their midfield and defence were at best meandering, at worst anaemic.
  — Anantaajith Raghuraman, New York Times, 11 July 2026
• Yet Potter was, at best, in a fight with Jay Huff for the Pacers backup center role heading into the coming season.
  — Tony East, Forbes.com, 8 July 2026
• All of which is to say, the loyalty of both Ulf and Hugh seems tenuous at best at this point, and neither Rhaenyra or Daemon seem the least bit concerned.
  — Erik Kain, Forbes.com, 27 July 2026
• Historically, Western norms during the 19th and 20th centuries held that to not eat meat is odd at best, and suspicious at worst.
  — David Rooney, The Conversation, 10 July 2026
• For reasons that are, at best, hazy, Lonnie had a meltdown of some amorphous type that had some sort of non-specific impact on his overall psyche, leaving him stuck in a nebulous rut.
  — Daniel Fienberg, HollywoodReporter, 16 July 2026
• In my observation, ramp-up times often exceed eight weeks, which means that the typical summer intern is only achieving meaningful output for, at best, the final two to four weeks.
  — Byron V. Garrett, Forbes.com, 1 July 2026
• Outside of Silicon Valley, there is a tendency to dismiss such prophecies as, at best, patently unserious.
  — Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker, 25 July 2026
• But this narrative of the USMNT winning formula is, at worst, wrong and at best, incomplete.
  — Michael Morris, Time, 1 July 2026
• And injections of stem cells and plasma-rich protein are widely offered but are controversial — and not covered by most insurance — because studies have been at best inconclusive about their benefit.
  — Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, CBS News, 13 July 2026
• In fact, rovers on the surface of Mars have observed both moons pass in front of the sun, and at best, Phobos (which is larger than Deimos and closer to the planet) covers only a fraction of the solar disk.
  — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 10 July 2026
• First, there’s little if any employer engagement; at best, employers contribute ideas for curriculum or deliver sessions on workplace expectations.
  — Ryan Craig, Forbes.com, 31 July 2026
• Republicans want to scare voters into thinking that if Democrats win the midterm elections, the United States will be on the road to a future in which the Senate is no more—or is, at best, an impotent debate club for elderly statesmen.
  — Jonathan Chait, The Atlantic, 22 July 2026
• However, because the full constellation was just 36 operational satellites, Transit could only provide location-fixing services every hour or two at best whenever a satellite appeared over the horizon.
  — Jeremy Hsu, ArsTechnica, 16 July 2026
• Now back in King’s Landing, Corlys is distracted at best, meeting with Rhaenyra’s small council to address the crown’s nonexistent funds — the latest on a long list of problems that need solving for the new Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.
  — Zoe Papelis, Vulture, 6 July 2026