seemingly

British  

/ ˈsiːmɪŋlɪ /

adverb

1. in appearance but not necessarily in actuality

   with seemingly effortless ease

2. (sentence modifier) apparently; as far as one knows

   seemingly, he had few friends left

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Explanation

Something seemingly true appears to be true. Use the adverb seemingly when you want to say "on the face of it" or "apparently." The word seemingly refers to how things look on the surface — how they seem — and it often suggests there's more to the story. A seemingly broken ankle might actually be sprained, and a seemingly rich man might actually be deeply in debt. While your dog is seemingly well-behaved, he may be eating the garbage when you're not home. Seemingly means about the same as apparently, ostensibly, or surely.

Example Sentences

But with war risks seemingly on the wane, and corporate America growing profits at a double-digit pace, investors are seeing few reasons to miss out on the market’s springtime momentum.

From Barron's • Apr. 15, 2026

What about the quest for supremacy, the seemingly eternal human desire to conquer the world?

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 15, 2026

The seemingly intractable issue over Hezbollah's weapons has long divided Lebanon, but Aoun appeared to believe he could solve it.

From BBC • Apr. 13, 2026

Here, the sun cast stark, dramatic shadows across the moon’s steep cliffs, rugged ripples and seemingly bottomless craters.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 9, 2026

For a variant of gross-beaked finch to appear on a Galápagos island by natural selection, two seemingly contradictory facts had to be simultaneously true.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee