significantly
Americanadverb
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in a way or as a fact that is important and deserves attention.
Significantly, Australia was a nation born in peacetime, not war.
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by a relatively great amount or to a relatively high degree.
She seems to have grown significantly as a character—her decisions are more mature, for one thing.
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in a way that carries special, secret, or private meaning.
The detective looked significantly at the collection of pills on the table, but said nothing.
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Statistics. in a way or to a degree that is unlikely to occur by chance and therefore indicates a systematic cause.
These results show that sleep significantly affects memory organization, even in the infant brain.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of significantly
Explanation
Anything that happens significantly happens in a big way. A significantly happier person has gotten much happier. Moving into a significantly bigger house means you can finally get that indoor pony. Significant things are important. When you see the word significantly, you know something is a big deal. A significantly higher tax rate would upset many people, because taxes went up a lot. A significantly lower-than-usual snowfall would upset skiers, because no one likes skiing on dry ground. A significantly timed speech happens at a time that is meaningful for some reason, like on a major holiday. This word often means the same as importantly.
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 company’s thesis is that optimizing existing AI infrastructure could unlock significantly more compute than is currently available, said co-founder and co-Chief Executive Hans-Juergen Schmidtke.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
Analysis by commercial property firm CBRE, external found that while the vacancy rate across UK shopping centres in the second quarter of this year was 16%, it was "significantly lower" at major centres.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
The quark can disturb the plasma and produce a wake, while the Z boson should pass through without significantly affecting the material around it.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 6, 2026
Immigrant patients who did come into the ER during the first four weeks after June 5, 2025, were significantly more likely to be sick enough to require hospitalization.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 5, 2026
More significantly, their online life had been dramatically improved by cable modem access and their new equipment.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
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.
