emphatically
Britishadverb
-
with emphasis or force
-
definitely or unquestionably
Explanation
When you say something emphatically, you say it with great emphasis and force, like when you emphatically denied that you took the last cookie. Emphatically, pronounced "em-FAT-ick-lee," shares the same origin as emphasize, which means "to stress or put particular importance on something." When you say or do something emphatically, you really mean it. For example, if you emphatically say "no" when someone asks you on a date, that person isn't likely to ask you — or even look in your direction — again.
Vocabulary lists containing emphatically
A Christmas Carol
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The Giver
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Wonder
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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.
The $18.49 Bio Orto remains, emphatically, an $18.49 jar of pasta sauce.
From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2026
To see them beat Newcastle, and how emphatically they did it, was massive and more proof of their progress.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
Chen said the computing costs ran "emphatically in the millions of dollars," with Bubeck adding this was roughly 1,000 times what the company spent on earlier mathematical results.
From Barron's ● Sep. 8, 2026
Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins once wrote that “we state again emphatically that we oppose prosecuting women for abortion.”
From Slate ● Aug. 7, 2026
“They’re getting better, that’s what’s happening to them,” General Dreedle growled emphatically.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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.
