originally
Americanadverb
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with respect to origin; by origin.
Originally he came from California.
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at the beginning; at first.
Originally this was to be in three volumes.
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in the first place; primarily.
Originally nomads, they first learned agriculture from the missionaries.
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in an original, novel, or distinctively individual manner.
Originally planned houses are much in demand.
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Archaic. from the beginning; from the first; inherently.
adverb
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in the first place
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in an original way
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with reference to the origin or beginning
Etymology
Origin of originally
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A version of this story originally appeared on Max Kutner’s Zephyr Letter substack.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
Bateman: Clark became more wide-eyed than I originally planned.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
Last year Dillon Green, one of the organisers at Marymass, told BBC Scotland News the ham had originally been the prize so it could "feed the poor of the town".
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
When the fossils were originally found, scientists had far fewer mosasaur specimens available for comparison, making it difficult to determine exactly what kind of mosasaur the bones represented.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 15, 2026
Though originally adapted to hunting large game in the Arctic, they soon adjusted to an amazing variety of climates and ecosystems.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
