strictly speaking
14
4.3
- idiom
:
estrictamente hablando
- Strictly speaking, we don't have one.
Well, what we're calling the past no longer, strictly speaking, exists.
- Well, what we're calling the past no longer, strictly speaking, exists.
- So other people are strictly speaking, external to us, right?
- You can't just, strictly speaking, deduce it from what came previously.
- Now, strictly speaking, you don't actually have to use these.
- We don't act in a way that's strictly speaking optimal given our environment, right?
- But then, strictly speaking, peanuts aren't nuts and French fries aren't French.
- John, you're really offering us the option of a clever evasion that is, strictly speaking, true.
- So yes, we can put Einstein's equations on a computer, but strictly speaking we don't know that what we're doing is correct.
- But strictly speaking, all we have perceptual access to is someone's behaviour.
- You're touching on something important, though, when you point out that this is units of action, but it is not, strictly speaking, the action.
- And strictly speaking, that's an independent hypothesis from the whole business about evolution leading us to have evolved a headset.
- That said, while I don't think time travel is strictly speaking impossible, I'll admit that for all we currently know, it appears to be very implausible.
- Hegel says morality, strictly speaking, is not not what?
Examples
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And this was not, strictly speaking, a secret study.
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Strictly speaking, of course, you have a problem.
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Nothing that we have done, strictly speaking, is wrong.
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Instead, what I am, strictly speaking, is a soul.
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Some of the challenges that the United States will face are not, strictly speaking, intelligence problems.
Academic text (1990) -
Strictly speaking, this is not a crime over which you have any jurisdiction.
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Ukrainians were involved in both, but neither was, strictly speaking, a Ukrainian story.
Academic text (2008) -
In the natural sciences, to take the other extreme, knowledge is gained, strictly speaking, when one conclusion replaces another.
Academic text (1990) -
In reality, Kale had been teaching privately since 1939, but strictly speaking, it was an illegal occupation.
Academic text (1991) -
Nothing that we have done, strictly speaking, is wrong.
Synonyms
434
4.8
Something is true by the exact rules or facts, not by how people usually think
246
3.5
In the exact meaning of the words, not as an exaggeration
223
3.7
It applies only to allowed people or mentioned things
17
3.7
A phrase that gives more exact information about what was just said
1
6.7
Saying what is exactly true or correct
Antonyms
How Strict
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from 'strictly' (in an exact, precise way) modifying 'speaking' (when speaking/expressing): it conveys ‘if one speaks in the strictest sense’ or ‘in exact terms’. The construction is compositional and has clear parallels in many languages (e.g. Spanish 'estrictamente hablando', French 'strictement parlant'), so a B1 learner who knows both words will generally understand it.
Etymology
Strictly speaking may come from the image of a strict teacher or judge who says only the exact facts and cares about small details, where strictly means strict and speaking means saying words. So when someone says strictly speaking, they mean 'if you are exact' or 'in the strictest sense'.