Pointedly

adv

adv ·3 syllables ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    Explicitly; with emphasis; so as to make a point, especially with criticism.

    "The film echoes a central question from all the Wick films, though: is he a natural-born murderer? Or a good man underneath it all? "This is who you are," the Marquis tells him. "A killer." The question is pointedly unresolved here."

  2. 2
    Wittily or pithily. obsolete
Adverb
  1. 1
    in such a manner as to make something clearly evident wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abundantlyacutelyadvisedlyamazinglyamplyaphoristically

Example

More examples

"But then the dogs were howling pointedly, insistently toward the south."

Etymology

From pointed + -ly.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.