virtually
- 1To a degree that is almost, but not quite, complete or exact.
The storm knocked out power to virtually every home on the island.
With a week to go, the two candidates are virtually tied in the polls.
Similarnearly, practically
Note
The everyday use does its best work beside absolute words: virtually no claim forms, a return of virtually zero, virtually every home. It trims the absolute just short of complete, the same job nearly, practically and as good as do. Numbers take it too, as in virtually three years, which means a little under three.
- 2By means of computers, or online rather than in the physical world.
Because of the snowstorm, the school board met virtually on Tuesday night.
Visitors can now tour the museum virtually, clicking through each gallery from home.
Similardigitally
Oppositephysically
Note
The online sense usually follows its verb, as in met virtually or tour the museum virtually, and that position matters. Placed before a verb or a quantity, the word slides back toward the "almost" sense: virtually everyone attended means nearly all of them were there, not that they logged in. Where the context is unclear, online says it without the ambiguity.
- 3In essence or in the way it works, though not in strict fact or in any formal or technical sense.
He was never formally adopted, but after ten years in their home he is virtually a son to them.
The two firms are still legally separate, but they virtually operate as one company, sharing offices and staff.
Similareffectively, practically
Oppositenominally, officially
Note
Here the word grants the substance and withholds the title: someone who is virtually a member of the family has everything but the formal standing, which is not the same as almost belonging. It usually leads into a noun of role or status. Effectively is the clearest substitute, because practically shares the double meaning with the "almost" sense.
- 4Used before a property of a group to say that some subgroup of finite index has that property.
Every finitely generated abelian group is virtually free abelian.
Because the group contains a copy of ℤ with finite index, it is virtually cyclic.
Note
Group theorists attach it to almost any property, or even to a group's name: W is virtually ℤ, a group is virtually free. A subgroup has finite index when finitely many of its cosets cover the whole group, so the property need only hold on a piece that is large in that sense. Every finite group is therefore virtually trivial.
- 5Used before a property of a space to say that some covering space of finite degree has that property.
Every non-orientable manifold is virtually orientable, since its orientation double cover is orientable.
It is now known that every closed hyperbolic 3-manifold is virtually Haken.
Note
In topology the word points to a finite cover: a manifold is virtually Haken if it is finitely covered by a Haken manifold. A cover of finite degree lies over the space in finitely many sheets, which is why papers also speak of finite-sheeted covering maps. The usage mirrors the group-theory meaning, since such covers correspond to subgroups of finite index in the fundamental group.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English vertually, equivalent to virtual + -ly.