figuratively

adverb

fig·​u·​ra·​tive·​ly ˈfi-g(y)ə-rə-tiv-lē 

: in a figurative way: such as

a

: with a meaning that is metaphorical rather than literal

Speaking of panic, I recently ran into (figuratively, not literally) a friend who was ranting about giant "bees" digging holes in his lawn.

—Ron Kujawski

Poor small-town America. During the last gasps of this fevered election, pollsters, zealous campaign foot soldiers and reporters are kicking down its doors, figuratively speaking …

—Doug Colligan

b

: in a way intended to represent the form or figure of something or someone having objective reality : in a way that is not purely abstract

Franz Kline, who had always painted figuratively, made his breakthrough in 1949 when he looked at one of his sketches in a Bell-Opticon magnifier, and saw the rough, thrusting horizontals and verticals that became the basis of his new abstract style.

—Calvin Tomkins

Examples of figuratively in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

At least so the scene at the New York Film Festival this weekend suggested, where on Sunday an unsettlingly large Eisenberg — Zooming in from Budapest — hovered literally and figuratively over the proceedings. —Steven Zeitchik, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 Oct. 2024

In the days after the Oct. 7 attack, Biden fervently embraced Netanyahu and Israel, literally and figuratively, calculating that unvarnished American support for the Jewish state would result in a willingness to accede to some American demands. —Dan De Luce, NBC News, 29 Sep. 2024

But nobody stabs anybody else in the back—figuratively or literally. —Frederick Dreier, Outside Online, 1 Sep. 2024

At Green School Bali, another sustainable school, the approach to sunlight is simplified to its barest bones—literally and figuratively, with the majority of the buildings on campus bearing no walls at all. —Maya Chawla, Architectural Digest, 25 Sep. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined above