initially

adverb

ini·​tial·​ly i-ˈni-sh(ə-)lē 

: at the beginning : at first

The reason I initially came here was to find work.

It turned out that the situation was not as serious as we had initially believed.

Initially, the symptoms are mild.

Synonyms of initially

• originally

Examples of initially in a Sentence

we initially intended to rebuild our hurricane-damaged home from the ground up

Recent Examples on the Web

Daniel Kurnos, a media equity analyst with Benchmark, said that many initially viewed Ellison as a rich kid trading on the name of his father, Larry Ellison, the larger-than-life executive chairman of Oracle. —Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 17 Nov. 2025

Police initially reported the attacks had happened on the same block, but later corrected the information. —Adam Harrington, CBS News, 17 Nov. 2025

The poll was conducted among a sample of 1,288 adults across the nation who were initially surveyed during the shutdown. —Karissa Waddick, USA Today, 16 Nov. 2025

Rigsby made his first trip to Afghanistan in 2009, initially to work with an NGO trying to develop transport infrastructure. —Sofie Buckminster, semafor.com, 16 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1628, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for initially

• judicially
• officially
• artificially
• beneficially
• prejudicially
• superficially
• unofficially