By all means

Posted by David FG on October 18, 2005

In Reply to: By all means posted by Kathy on October 17, 2005

: If someone says, "Thank you." and the other person replies, "By all means." what does "by all means" mean?

It is an odd use of the phrase in my opinion. I would expect it to be used in reply to a request:
'could you open the door for me?' 'By all means'. It means certainly - or that is my experience of it.

DFG