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naturally

naturally

294 1.0
As expected, without surprise
  • adverb
  • /ˈnæʧərəli/
translation icon : naturalmente
  • When you announced you were coming to lunch, I naturally assumed you wanted something.
  • follows naturally
  • naturally leads
  • quite naturally

I think that naturally everyone wants to be liked.

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Examples

  • The options available to Canada's new federal government are naturally more limited.

    Academic text (2017)
  • The semester ends, naturally, with a concert of the students' newly composed music.

    Academic text (2011)
  • I think that naturally everyone wants to be liked.

  • Would you expect something like that to happen naturally on the TV side?

  • Our survival rate is somewhere around point four percent, and we naturally want to improve that.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • The next question was, naturally, why would anyone choose to freeze themselves, let alone just their head?

    Academic text (2011)
  • American officials quite naturally tend to act as if the world were unipolar.

    Academic text (1999)
  • So people naturally gravitate toward those kinds of beliefs.

  • Often, conversation strayed from the guide, and discussion naturally flowed from topic to topic.

    Academic text (2015)
  • It is naturally expected that children will ask questions about the world around them.

Synonyms

of course
vsnaturally
1.0

To show something is obvious and to say yes or give permission

only expresses the sense of being unsurprising or logically expected
normally
vsnaturally
884 1.0

In the usual way that people expect

is about things that are unsurprising or only logical
as usual
vsnaturally
317 1.0

In the normal way people expect in that situation

stresses being unsurprising or only logical rather than routine
ordinarily
vsnaturally
78 3.0

In most situations

is focused on being unsurprising or simply logical
predictably
vsnaturally
31 3.4

In a way people expect

leans more on being logically unsurprising than on forecastability
unsurprisingly
vsnaturally
19 3.7

In a way people expect to happen

expresses the same unsurprising expectation but with plain logical tone
expectedly
vsnaturally
1 3.5

As most people thought would happen

leans more on simple logic and lack of surprise than forecast
expectably
vsnaturally
3.9

In a way people thought would happen

emphasizes plain logical unsurprising nature rather than prediction
natch
vsnaturally
  • Slang
9.9

In a way that is natural or expected

uses neutral wording about logical unsurprising facts rather than informal tone

Antonyms

272 2.5

In a way that people do not expect

12 4.7

In a way that seems strange or not natural

Compounds

Found in nature without being made or changed by people

How Expected

inevitably
181 4.0
naturally
294 1.0
surprisingly
272 2.5

Surface Forms

naturally positive

Morphology

naturally = natural (transparent) = nature + al + ly

Formed by the regular adverbial suffix '-ly' added to 'natural'; the sense 'as might be expected' is a common, directly derivable pragmatic extension.

Etymology

The word naturally comes from nature, a word that originally meant 'birth' or 'the natural world'. So when we say something happened naturally in the sense 'as might be expected', it is like saying it happened the way nature would do it.