clinically

American  

[kli-nik-lee] / ˈklɪ nɪk li /

adverb

1. in a clinical way.

---

Explanation

When a medication has been clinically proven, it's been tested on actual patients. Clinically can also describe a cold and detached manner, a personality better suited to robots than people. It's a good thing when doctors and scientists do things clinically, because they're not only using studies and statistics to make decisions — they're talking to and observing patients. On the other hand, when a doctor treats you clinically at your yearly appointment, she is efficient but aloof, rather than warm and welcoming. Clinically is from clinical, from the Latin clinicus, "physician who visits patients in their beds," with the Greek root klinike, "at the sickbed."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

clinically

At Stanford Medicine’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, bedside monitors in the pediatric intensive-care and acute cardiac-care units were generating large numbers of alarms considered “nonactionable”—caused by brief, self-correcting or clinically unimportant changes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026

Clancy was clinically diagnosed with major depressive disorder by multiple professionals: McLean Hospital psychiatrist Dr. Alia Goodheart, outpatient psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Tufts and prosecution expert Dr. Avram Mack.

From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026

“It was this clinically nostalgic, timeless, beautiful place that everyone wishes they could go back to,” said Park, who also set her 2024 movie, “My Old Ass” starring Aubrey Plaza, in the region.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

Dr Simon Cork, from Anglia Ruskin University, said while the weight-loss benefits of Foundayo were less than other treatments, patients could still expect to see "significant, clinically meaningful changes to their weight".

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026

Fischer hid the fact from everyone, as well, that he may have been clinically ill during the summit attempt.

From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer