Actually
adv, intj, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 In act or in fact; really; in truth; positively. modal, not-comparable
"His promises did not correspond with what he actually did."
- 2 Actively. not-comparable, obsolete
"Neither actually […] nor passively."
- 3 Currently; at the time. not-comparable
"At the time whereof we are writing, though the Great George was on the throne and ladies wore gigots and large combs like tortoise-shell shovels in their hair, instead of the simple sleeves and lovely wreaths which are actually in fashion, the manners of the very polite world were not, I take it, essentially different from those of the present day: and their amusements pretty similar."
- 1 used to imply that one would expect the fact to be the opposite of that stated; surprisingly wordnet
- 2 in actual fact wordnet
- 3 as a sentence modifier to add slight emphasis; as a modifier to add slight emphasis wordnet
- 4 at present wordnet
- 1 Indicating affirmation, agreement. Philippines, informal
"A: That was a pretty good movie."
Example
More examples"Half an eye is very useful actually, because an animal can see half of another animal, which wants to eat it, and can get out of the way, and it will eat the animal, which has only one-half eye or only 49% of an eye, because this to it will not be enough, and the animal, which was eaten up, will have no children, because it is dead."
Etymology
From Middle English actually, actuelly, equivalent to actual + -ly.
A calque of Tagalog talaga.
Related phrases
More for "actually"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.