An example question of the usage of little to no: Idiom to describe something that has little to no effect?
I understand that the phrase little to no effect means little effect, or worst, no effect. But do we have a contrastive phrase? I guess big to all?
Note: I would like to know the contrastive phrase of little to no in general, not little to no effort. I see there is an usage of little to no respect.
If you are not satisfied with substantial ( I owe this to Oldbag) may I then suggest second-to-none; second to none. An example: wild honey has little to no benefit for chest allergy but Frankincense herbal extract is second to none for curing it.
You can say, "...a substantial effect", "...a measurable effect", "...an obvious effect" - any idioms that might be applicable would depend on the particulars of the situation. You might say, "'X' really turned it around."
I don't think there is a true equivalent, due to the nature of effort.
"little to no effort" is common because of the potentially for pedantry when it comes to claiming no effort whatsoever. Consider the exchange where a teacher says a child put in no effort, and the child counters with the fact of them writing their name proving some (if negligable) effort.
On the other hand, maximum effort is poorly defined. While no effort means doing absolutely nothing towards the task at hand, putting in total effort is hard to pin down, and the difference is far less likely to be argued. Even terms for maximum possible effort are relatively unusual (maximum and total both sound odd). There are a few phrases that are more common such as "giving 100%/evertything/it all/all you've got" or "doing your best". Terms for almost maximum to be equivalent to the little are even less prevelant.
The closest I can get while sounding natural would be:
giving everything (or as close as makes no difference)
Generally, one would just use a term for a lot of effort, or one of the 'maximum effort' terms suggested above. I can't think of a situation where it's necessary or natural to specific close to maximum effort.
Edit: The same is essentially true of most things. Let's take betting, betting almost everything to everything still sounds pretty awkward. If we reuse:
Despite his confidence, he bet little to nothing on the outcome of the game.
Because of his confidence, he went all in (or as close as makes no difference) on the outcome of the game.
I can't think of anything better generically. If you are willing to stray a little 'effectively' might work, E.g: 'effectively going all in'. The effectively has the meaning of close enough to be the same, which gives mostly the same impression.
Consider the term virtually combined with an adjective
[AS SUBMODIFIER] Nearly; almost:
virtually all those arrested were accused
the college became virtually bankrupt
Oxford Dictionaries Online
The word is used as an adverb and frequently combined with adjectives that reflect an absolute or superlative condition, such as all, every, perfect, complete, dead, and similar terms.
It connotes being so close to the absolute as to be effectively indistinguishable from it.
