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.
Originally proposed by Beardsley Ruml, an executive at Macy’s department store who encouraged shoppers to buy on the installment plan, withholding was cleverly called “pay as you go.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 9, 2026
Originally set to be filed Friday morning, the lawsuit was delayed so lawyers could update it with information from clients who they had lost contact with, the Global Strategic Litigation Council said.
From Barron's • Jun. 5, 2026
Originally titled “Being straight is great, actually,” the headline changed when, presumably, someone noted the optics of running a piece with that title on Pride Eve; it now reads “There’s nothing wrong with wanting men.”
From Salon • Jun. 3, 2026
Originally published in 1988, Rivals is the second of Cooper's hugely successful Rutshire Chronicles, a series of books that chronicle the lives of English upper and upper-middle classes in a fictional area of the Cotswolds.
From BBC • May 30, 2026
Originally, in the time of prebiotic elaboration of peptides and nucleotides from inorganic ingredients in the water on the earth, there was nothing to shield out ultraviolet radiation except the water itself.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
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.
