frankly
- 1In truth; to tell the truth. Marks what follows as the speaker's honest opinion or assessment.
Frankly, the budget proposal needs a complete overhaul before the board will approve it.
We should, frankly, have left for the airport an hour ago.
Similarhonestly, really, truly, actually, indeed
Note
A comment on the speaker rather than on anything inside the clause: here frankly vouches for what is about to be said. Commas set it off, whether it opens the sentence or interrupts it, and the pause gives the verdict more weight. Rhett Butler's "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" in Gone with the Wind (1939) shows the typical payoff, a blunt judgment. To be frank and truth to tell can stand in its place.
- 2In a candid, open manner, especially with an honesty or directness that may seem excessive or slightly blunt.
The doctor spoke frankly about the risks of the operation.
In her memoir, she writes frankly about her divorce and its aftermath.
Similarhonestly, openly, candidly, bluntly, truthfully
Oppositeevasively, guardedly, dishonestly
Note
Where it sits changes how it reads. After a verb it describes manner, as in he spoke frankly about the economy. Before an adjective it says a feeling is on open display: in Louis Joseph Vance's "An Outsider" (1914) the heroine is frankly disappointed and does not hide it. In Jill Filipovic's "frankly insulting" (2023), the word leans toward the "to tell the truth" meaning, half describing and half vouching.
- 3In medicine and the sciences, to a degree great enough to be plainly evident.
The biopsy revealed frankly malignant cells in the tissue sample.
By the third day of the illness, the patient was frankly jaundiced.
Similarovertly, clearly, plainly, obviously, manifestly
Note
A clinician's intensifier, placed directly before the adjective for a condition: frankly septic, frankly psychotic, frankly malignant. It marks a finding as fully developed and unmistakable rather than borderline or merely suspected. Honesty plays no part, so a reader can mistake it for the "to tell the truth" meaning. Position gives it away: it sits tight against the adjective inside a clinical description, with no commas around it.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from "frank" combined with the suffix "-ly".