mixed blessing

noun

something that, although generally favorable or advantageous, has one or more unfavorable or disadvantageous features.

Origin:
1930–35

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins

World English Dictionary

mixed blessing

—n
	an event, situation, etc, having both advantages and disadvantages

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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00:10

Mixed blessing is always a great word to know.

So is interrobang. Does it mean:

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

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Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon

Main Entry:	mixed blessing
Part of Speech:	n
Definition:	a circumstance or thing that has both advantages and disadvantages

Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon
Copyright © 2003-2013 Dictionary.com, LLC
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American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

mixed blessing

Something that has both good and bad features, as in Being accepted by the college was a mixed blessing, since she couldn't afford the tuition. [First half of 1900s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Example sentences

For global warming, though, gas is a mixed blessing.

But it's been a mixed blessing, with destructive floods in the southern part of

the state and flash floods almost everywhere.

Issuing the world's reserve currency, while a mixed blessing, matters.

Viewed politically, in fact, the recovery in profits that has given

encouragement to the bulls has been a mixed blessing.

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Matching Quote

"Some years ago, writing about stage adaptations of fiction, I noted: "There is a simple law governing the dramatization of novels: if it is worth doing, it can't be done; if it can be done, it's not worth doing." Certain reviewers did me the honor of calling this Simon's Law, and I might as well state it now as far as the screen is concerned, "Simon's Law" may still serve as a useful warning but has no legality. For two reasons. First, because unlike the stage, the screen possesses as many resources as fiction, so that, for example, extended narration is possible on screen, backed up by an extensive visual scenario, but not on the stage, where it must become monotonous; similarly, stream of consciousness has its filmic equivalents in montage, voice-over dialogue, closeups and extreme closeups, dissolves, etc., whereas on stage, as mere verbiage, it cannot fail to bore. Secondly, because the screen can fully illustrate what the novel can only name or describe. Of course, this is a mixed blessing, because such illustration can make things overexplicit and oppressive; still, it is there as a resource for those who can effectively handle it."

-John Simon

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