DictionaryAI

potentially

adverb
USpuh-TEN-shuh-lee/pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/

2 meanings of potentially

Practice

  1. 1
    adverb
    In a way that reveals latent possibility; with the possibility of developing or happening in a given way.

    The discovery could potentially transform how doctors treat the disease.

    Investors worry that the new policy might potentially destabilize the market.

    Similarpossibly, conceivably, perhaps

  2. 2
    adverbobsolete
    In a powerful, forceful manner; with great strength or efficacy.
    Note

    An older meaning that modern readers can easily misread: Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851) praises an influence that "operated more potentially upon the whole broad world," meaning more powerfully, not more possibly. The sense is obsolete, so in older prose read it as strength or force. In your own writing, the word now belongs to the sense of possibility, and powerfully says this older meaning plainly.

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Origin

Formed from "potential" combined with the suffix "-ly."