seemingly
- 1According to how something appears, though not necessarily in reality.
Like a magician's trick that looks effortless while hiding all the real work.
The two leaders shook hands and ended a seemingly endless dispute.
He stayed calm throughout the crisis, seemingly untroubled by the chaos around him.
Similarapparently, ostensibly, outwardly, superficially
Note
Most often it sits just before an adjective or participle and hedges it: a seemingly immense distance, seemingly inclined for more chat, the most seemingly insignificant element. Hume in 1748 uses it to set appearance against outcome, an object seemingly like familiar ones yet attended with different effects. Formed in Middle English from seeming plus -ly, it shares that origin with the "decorously" meaning.
- 2In a fitting, decorous manner that observes propriety.
Similarfittingly, decorously, properly
Oppositeimproperly
Note
The manners meaning keeps close company with behave. To behave seemingly is to act as the company or occasion requires, whether toward gentlemen, as a condition of a king's restoration to his throne, or before deities and ancestral spirits. Make the conduct unmistakable with a duty, a condition or a setting such as a court. Otherwise the sentence will be heard as the hedging "apparently" sense.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English semyngly, equivalent to "seeming" combined with the suffix "-ly".