actually

1. 1.

   in actual fact

   “to be nominally but not actually independent”

   “no one actually saw the shark”

   “large meteorites actually come from the asteroid belt”

   Synonymsreally
2. 2.

   used to imply that one would expect the fact to be the opposite of that stated; surprisingly

   “you may actually be doing the right thing by walking out”

   “she actually spoke Latin”

   “they thought they made the rules but in reality they were only puppets”

   “people who seem stand-offish are in reality often simply nervous”

   Synonymsin reality
3. 3.

   at the present moment

   “the transmission screen shows the picture that is actually on the air”
4. 4.

   as a sentence modifier to add slight emphasis

   “actually, we all help clear up after a meal”

   “actually, I haven't seen the film”

   “I'm not all that surprised actually”

   “she hasn't proved to be too satisfactory, actually”

Questions about actually

What does actually mean?

actually means "in actual fact". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in actually?

actually has 4 syllables: ac-tu-al-ly. The stress falls on "ac". In IPA it is /ˈækˌtʃuəli/.

What is another word for actually?

Close synonyms include really, in reality. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is actually a common word?

actually is banded "Core" — among the few thousand words that carry most english. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.