1
[ adverb ] at bottom or by one's (or its) very nature

Examples

"He is basically dishonest" "the argument was essentially a technical one" "for all his bluster he is in essence a shy person"

Used in print

(Schubert Ogden, Christ Without Myth....)

What makes this long and diverse tradition essentially one is that those who have belonged_to it have been profoundly in_earnest about being modern men in a distinctively modern_world .

(High Fidelity, 11:10...)

Other interpretations present the music as an essentially intimate creation .

(Tristram P. Coffin, "Folklore in the American Twentieth...)

It is an understandable paradox that most American history and most American literature is today written from an essentially egocentric and isolationistic point_of_view at the very time America is spreading her dominion over palm and pine .

1 ) Most_of the legends that are created to fan the fires of patriotism are essentially propagandistic and are not folk legends at_all .

(Howard Nemerov, "Themes and Methods: The Early...)

Professionally a lawyer , that_is_to_say associated with dignity , reserve , discipline , with much that is essentially middle-class , he is compelled by an impossible love to exhibit himself dressed_up , disguised - that_is , paradoxically , revealed - as a child , and , worse , as a whore masquerading as a child .

*