strictly speaking

1. 1.

   in actual fact

   “properly speaking, they are not husband and wife”

   Synonymsproperly speakingto be precise

Questions about strictly speaking

What does strictly speaking mean?

strictly speaking means "in actual fact".

What is another word for strictly speaking?

Close synonyms include properly speaking, to be precise. 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 strictly speaking a common word?

strictly speaking is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.