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OneKitly

theoretically

adverbattested in dialogue

  • United States

in theory; on paper

adverb

  1. 1

    in theory; on paper

    I haven't tested it, but theoretically it ought to fly.

    Of course, it will never get -100 here like it does in Antarctica, but a 300-degree swing was still theoretically possible on a record-cold Minnesota morning–if we got the sauna hot enough.

  2. 2

    in a theoretical manner

    I solved the problem theoretically rather than practically.

  3. 3

    in theory though not necessarily in reality.

    Rumors of an indictment had spread through this heavily gay and lesbian community since shortly after the theoretically secret investigation began in 1984.

    No, but insurance does cover it. Theoretically.

Etymology

Etymology tree English theoretical Proto-Indo-European *leyg-der. Proto-Germanic *līkąder. Proto-Germanic *-līkaz Proto-Germanic *-ê Proto-Germanic *-līkê Proto-West Germanic *-līkē Old English -līċe Middle English -ly English -ly English theoretically From theoretical + -ly.

The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).