essentially
es·sen·tial·ly/ɪˈsɛnʃəli/adverb
essentially is spelled E-S-S-E-N-T-I-A-L-L-Y, 4 syllables: es·sen·tial·ly. The wrong spelling people search most is essentialy: about 40 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 35 of all searches for the word. Essentially is an adverb meaning “In essence: by nature”.
How many letters and syllables are in essentially?
| Letters | 11: E-S-S-E-N-T-I-A-L-L-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4: es·sen·tial·ly |
| In writing | 26 times per million words; the 3,479th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, essentialy, about 40 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell essentially?
Essentially is spelled E-S-S-E-N-T-I-A-L-L-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 35 of the searches for essentially in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is essentially?
Essentially appears 26 times per million words in written English, the 3,479th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce essentially?
- /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/
Essentially has 4 syllables, split es·sen·tial·ly in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-essentially.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-essentially.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of essentially
- more essentially comparative
- most essentially superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does essentially mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adverb
- 1
In essence: by nature.
Near-synonyms: actually, at bottom, at heart, basically, fundamentally, characteristically, centrally, substantially; see also Thesaurus:fundamentally
- 2
In essence: in most ways that matter; in all ways that matter.
A: So you're saying, in other words, that he's greedy? B: Essentially, yes, that's what I'm saying.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Essentially in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense essentially:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | essentiellement, en essence |
| German | im Wesentlichen, im Grunde, im Kern, im Grunde genommen |
| Portuguese | em essência, essencialmente |
| Spanish | esencialmente, en esencia |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does essentially come from?
From essential + -ly.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).