briefly

adverb

brief·​ly ˈbrē-flē 

1

a

: in a brief way

briefly mentioned

b

: in brief

the food, briefly, was awful

2

: for a short time

briefly married

Synonyms

• concisely
• shortly

Examples of briefly in a Sentence

Several important issues are only briefly mentioned.

Please briefly describe your experience.

We briefly considered canceling the trip.

Recent Examples on the Web

Thaksin briefly allied with Move Forward in an attempt to form a government, but reneged on that deal to instead lead a motley coalition alongside 10 establishment-leaning parties, including two directly responsible for the 2014 ouster of his sister. —Charlie Campbell, Time, 15 Sep. 2025

Smith briefly went into the medical tent while Elliott booted a 51-yarder that gave them a 13-10 lead. —Brooks Kubena, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2025

MetalFX can briefly change that 1080p input resolution to something lower, which would briefly reduce image quality (since the upscaler is now turning an even lower-resolution image into a 4K image) in the interest of maintaining smoothness. —ArsTechnica, 15 Sep. 2025

Kuwait briefly considered Russian T-90MSs in the late 2010s but did not go ahead with it and seems happy with the American M1A2 Abrams, recently ordering the new M1A2K variant. —Paul Iddon, Forbes.com, 14 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Rhymes for briefly

• chiefly