DictionaryAI

physically

adverb
USFIZ-i-klee/ˈfɪz.ɪ.kli/

5 meanings of physically

Practice

  1. 1
    adverb
    In a physical way; in terms of the body or of material things.

    By the end of the double shift, the nurses were physically and emotionally exhausted.

    The two brothers are physically alike but have very different personalities.

    Oppositementally

    Note

    It often pairs with a second adverb so that body and mind are covered together: physically and emotionally exhausted, physically and psychologically undeniable, Ralph Ellison's patient "both physically and neurally whole" in Invisible Man (1952). When someone protests that a thing is "not physically possible for me," the limit is one body; the physics sense rules a thing out for everyone.

  2. 2
    adverb
    In accordance with the laws of physics.

    The engineers showed that the proposed engine was physically impossible, since it would create energy from nothing.

    No object with mass can physically reach the speed of light.

  3. 3
    adverb
    By means of physical force.

    Security staff physically removed the heckler from the meeting.

    She was physically assaulted outside her apartment building.

    Similarforcibly

    Oppositeverbally

  4. 4
    adverbcolloquial
    Directly, rather than automatically or by some similar means.

    The app wouldn't sync, so I had to physically copy every file onto the new laptop.

    You have to physically press the reset button, because the remote can't do it.

    Similarmanually

    Oppositeautomatically, remotely

    Note

    Informal English uses it for doing by hand what a machine was meant to do, even when nothing heavier than a menu is involved: after an update, someone has to go in and physically change all the settings back. It typically follows have to or had to and often sounds like a grumble, so it belongs in conversation rather than in a manual.

Less common meaning

  1. 5
    adverbobsolete
    In accordance with the rules of medicine.
    Note

    The obsolete medical sense is built on physic, an old word for medicine, plus -ally, rather than on physical or physics. Something done physically was done by the rules of medicine, and in an old text the word is easy to misread as the bodily meaning, which says something quite different.

Practice

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Origin

Formed either from physic + -ally or from physical + -ly.