Definition of "by and large" []

• For the most part; generally: By and large, the play was a success. (adverb)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "George M. Low, a member of NASA’s original Space Task Group and a leading official in the Office of Manned Space who later served as program manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, once explained the “fantastic amount of preparation” involved: “Although the astronauts along the way did enjoy some fun and games, by and large they were the hardest-working bunch of guys I ever knew."
• "The city was divided between two lordships, the prior's half and the earl's half, and from time to time there was some grumbling and discontent over privileges varying between the two, but there was a shared and acknowledged town moot for all, and by and large they rubbed shoulders with reasonable amity."
• "In Warsaw, these plainclothes shock troops who arrived by truck, the ones the students called Gestapo, were often workers 'militia, who were told that the student protesters were privileged kids who lived in the best apartments and took trips to Paris, all of which was by and large true."