DictionaryAI

apparently

adverb
Sayuh-PAIR-uhnt-lee/əˈpæɹ.ənt.li/UK/əˈpæɹ.ənt.liː/

3 meanings of apparently

Practice

  1. 1
    adverb
    As far as one can tell from how things look or from the evidence, though it may not be so.

    The apparently abandoned house turned out to have a family living in it.

    Investors were reassured by the company's apparently strong earnings, until the audit told a different story.

    UsageUsually placed right before the word it doubts: an apparently empty house. It means seemingly, not obviously.

    Note

    Here the word qualifies a single description and leaves room for it to be wrong: apparently friendly, yet malicious in heart. It often sits right before an adjective or inside a verb phrase, as when Donald Ringe writes in 2006 that the r-stems had apparently been reduced. That is the scholar's careful hedge, offering a conclusion while admitting it rests on appearances.

  2. 2
    adverb
    According to what the speaker has read or heard, often signaling that the information is secondhand.

    Apparently the company is laying off workers; it was all over the news this morning.

    She's moving to Denver, apparently. Her sister mentioned it last week.

    UsageOften at the start or end of the sentence: Apparently, she's moving, or she's moving, apparently.

    Similarreportedly, allegedly

  3. 3
    adverbrare
    Plainly and clearly; in a manner that is obvious or evident to any observer.
    If he should scorn me so apparently.
    1591, William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors
    One, my lord, that doth so palpably, so apparently make her adulteries a trophy, whiles the poting-stick to her unsatiate goatish abomination jeers at, and flouts your sleepish, and more than sleepish, security.
    1633, John Ford, Loues Sacrifice. A Tragedie

    Similarobviously, clearly, plainly, evidently, visibly

    Note

    The confident older meaning, now rare, in which the word asserts rather than hedges. Shakespeare uses it in The Comedy of Errors, and John Ford in 1633 pairs it with palpably to mean 'in plain sight'. Modern readers easily misread such lines, because the word has since moved toward the 'seeming' meaning.

Practice

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Origin

Formed from "apparent" combined with the adverb-forming suffix "-ly".

Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 2 facts