1
[ adverb ] indicating exactness or preciseness

Synonyms

just exactly

Examples

"he was doing precisely (or exactly) what she had told him to do" "it was just as he said--the jewel was gone" "it has just enough salt"

Used in print

(Chicago Daily Tribune...)

That 's not precisely the way Larkin urges them to look_at it , though .

(William G. Pollard, Physicist and Christian....)

Yet in the contemporary context this is precisely what one must_not do .

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

Can we continue to alienate precisely those whose gifts we so desperately need and apart from whose co-operation our mission in the world must become increasingly precarious ?

(Nathan Rapport, ""I've Been Here before!"...)

Emerson , in his lecture , refers to the `` startling experience which almost every person confesses in daylight , that particular passages of conversation and action have occurred to him in the same order before , whether dreaming or waking , a suspicion that they have been with precisely these persons in precisely this room , and heard precisely this dialogue , at some former hour , they know not when '' .

Emerson , in his lecture , refers to the `` startling experience which almost every person confesses in daylight , that particular passages of conversation and action have occurred to him in the same order before , whether dreaming or waking , a suspicion that they have been with precisely these persons in precisely this room , and heard precisely this dialogue , at some former hour , they know not when '' .

Related terms

precise exact precise exact

2
[ adverb ] in a precise manner

Synonyms

exactly incisively

Examples

"she always expressed herself precisely"

Used in print

(Jaroslav Pelikan, The Shape of Death: life, death and...)

Perhaps no church_father saw this concurrence of the unique and the universal as clearly , or formulated it as precisely , as Irenaeus .

(S. Idell Pyle, et al., Onsets, Completions, and...)

Accordingly , if epiphyseal diaphyseal fusion occurs in this phalanx near menarche , early and late menarches might have been forecast rather precisely at the time of Onset of ossification for the 18 girls with `` same schedule '' .

(Gerald Green, The Heartless Light....)

She answered him precisely , missing not a beat in her scrutiny of the financial reports .

3
[ adverb ] just as it should be

Examples

"`Precisely, my lord,' he said"

Used in print

(S. Idell Pyle, et al., Onsets, Completions, and...)

The length of the arrow indicates amount of slowing or acceleration at Completion over that at Onset , and the difference in months can be read roughly by referring the arrow to the age scale along the base of each figure , or more precisely by referring to the original data in the appropriate tables .

(Tristram Coffin, Not to the Swift....)

Lawrence could not put his finger on_it precisely , and this worried him .

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