bluntly

American  

[bluhnt-lee] / ˈblʌnt li /

adverb

1. starkly and directly, with no attempt to be tactful or diplomatic.

   I always had a tendency to act in ways that are politically unwise—to bluntly say what I consider the truth.

   To put it bluntly, that is a very poor piece of policy-making.

2. in a way that involves no subtlety or discernment.

   It was one of those things that's so bluntly obvious, none of them really had to say anything about it.

   The three-strikes law has been applied too broadly, too bluntly, with some people serving life sentences for relatively minor crimes.

3. without any sharp points or edges.

   It has downy leaves and stems and small white flowers blooming in June, followed by bluntly triangular seedpods.

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Etymology

Origin of bluntly

blunt ( def. ) + -ly

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bluntly

One NOS member put it more bluntly in a TV documentary five years later: "We were sticking two fingers up to normal, middle-class church ways of behaviour."

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 2026

Michael Hill, a professor of chemistry at Occidental College, puts it more bluntly: "LASIK is just a fancy way of doing traditional surgery. It's still carving tissue -- it's just carving with a laser."

From Science Daily ● Sep. 29, 2026

My husband thinks I’ve been taken advantage of, though he wouldn’t put it that bluntly.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 24, 2026

More bluntly, for many outside the tech world, these companies will be birthed as the bad guys, a remarkable swing from the early 2010s when founders were venerated as cultural heroes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026

At a White House meeting, the president’s top foreign policy advisor put it bluntly: “Daniel Ellsberg is the most dangerous man in America. He must be stopped at all costs.”

From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin

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Related Words

• crudely
• harshly

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