On the whole, any garbled composition (2,3,5)
I believe the answer is:
by and large
'on the whole' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'any garbled composition' is the wordplay.
'composition' indicates an anagram.
'any'+'garbled'='anygarbled'
'anygarbled' is an anagram of 'BY AND LARGE'.
(Other definitions for by and large that I've seen before include "In the main" , "As a rule" , "In general" , "Speaking generally" , "On the whole" .)