essentially

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

English essential

Proto-Indo-European *leyg-

Proto-Germanic *līkąder.

Proto-Germanic *-līkaz

Proto-Germanic *-ê

Proto-Germanic *-līkê

Old English -līċe

Middle English -ly

English -ly

English essentially

From essential + -ly.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• Audio (US):

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• Hyphenation: es‧sen‧tial‧ly

Adverb

essentially (comparative more essentially, superlative most essentially)

1. In an essential way.
   1. In essence: by nature.

      Synonyms: inherently, intrinsically, innately, naturally, quintessentially; see also Thesaurus:intrinsically

      Near-synonyms: actually, at bottom, at heart, basically, fundamentally, characteristically, centrally, substantially; see also Thesaurus:fundamentally

      Antonyms: circumstantially, happenstantially, incidentally, coincidentally, by chance, accidentally; see also Thesaurus:accidentally

      The beaver is a social creature, not just occasionally but essentially.

      • 2011 December 18, Jay Rayner, “Restaurant review: Aurelia”, in The Observer‎^[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 15 August 2022:

        A thin, crunchy lemon and thyme rosti was essentially the pimped-up aesthetic of the Kettle chip. That's OK. I like Kettle chips.

      • 2012 March, Henry Petroski, “Opening Doors”, in American Scientist‎^[2], volume 100, number 2, pages 112–3:

        A doorknob of whatever roundish shape is effectively a continuum of levers, with the axis of the latching mechanism—known as the spindle—being the fulcrum about which the turning takes place. Applying a force tangential to the knob is essentially equivalent to applying one perpendicular to a radial line defining the lever.

   2. (by extension) In essence: in most ways that matter; in all ways that matter.

      Synonyms: basically, fundamentally, substantially, substantively, more or less; see also Thesaurus:fundamentally, Thesaurus:mostly

      A: So you're saying, in other words, that he's greedy? B: Essentially, yes, that's what I'm saying.

Translations

essentially

• Armenian: ըստ էության (əst ēutʻyan)
• Azerbaijani: mahiyyətcə
• Catalan: en essència
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 本質上 / 本质上 (zh) (běnzhìshàng), 基本上 (zh) (jīběnshàng), 大體上 / 大体上 (zh) (dàtǐshang)

• Danish: i sit inderste væsen, i bund og grund, grundlæggende (da)
• Dutch: essentieel (nl)
• Esperanto: esence
• Faroese: í botn og grund
• Finnish: pohjimmiltaan, sisimmältään, perimmältään, periaatteessa, käytännössä (fi)
• French: essentiellement (fr), en essence

  Middle French: en essence

• German: im Wesentlichen (de), im Grunde, im Kern, im Grunde genommen
• Hungarian: lényegében (hu)
• Italian: in essenza
• Maltese: essenzjalment
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: dypest sett, i bunn og grunn (no)

• Pannonian Rusyn: у сущносци (u suščnosci), сущно (suščno)
• Polish: zasadniczo (pl), w gruncie rzeczy
• Portuguese: em essência, essencialmente (pt)
• Romanian: esențial (ro), în esență
• Russian: по существу́ (po suščestvú), суще́ственно (ru) (suščéstvenno), по су́ти (ru) (po súti), в су́щности (v súščnosti), есть (ru) (jestʹ) (dated), суть (ru) (sutʹ) (dated)
• Serbo-Croatian: u biti, u suštini
• Slovak: v podstate, esenciálne
• Spanish: esencialmente (es), en esencia
• Swedish: i grund och botten (sv)
• Ukrainian: по су́ті (po súti)