merely

adverb

mere·​ly ˈmir-lē 

: nothing more than : only

was merely trying to help

… no boy wanted to be on record as considering a girl a major fox only to discover that she considered him merely cool.

—Richard Russo

Not merely decorative, the crisscrossing slats and fins variously filter light and provide privacy.

—Rob Haskell

Many merely desire a pleasant afternoon perusing the exhibitions in their local gallery.

—Launt Thompson

Many of the deep-sea fishes, for example, have pathetically weak skeletons and terribly flabby bodies—in extreme cases they are the consistency of gelatin and seem to be composed merely of mouth and stomach.

—Tim Flannery

… because of technology what in the past would have taken days took merely hours.

—Lee Child

Synonyms of merely

• just
• only
• simply

Examples of merely in a Sentence

the outside noise was merely a raccoon knocking over the garbage can

Recent Examples on the Web

For starters, bright colors inject visibility – not merely for players looking to find each other amid the chaos of a World Cup match, but also for brands looking to draw the gazes of millions of onlooking fans towards their logo. —Jack Bantock, CNN Money, 22 June 2026

To give a concrete example, doubling sequence length from 32 tokens to 64 tokens does not merely double the computational cost for a transformer but rather quadruples it. —Rob Toews, Forbes.com, 22 June 2026

Chris Richards, Antonee Robinson, Sergiño Dest and the rest of the back line cannot merely survive against elite attackers. —Jon Root Outkick, FOXNews.com, 20 June 2026

However, unlike previous information technologies, AI is not merely storing information or transmitting it. —Sreedhar Potarazu, Baltimore Sun, 20 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1580, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing merely

• not just/only/merely
• not merely

Rhymes for merely

• austerely
• severely
• sincerely
• cavalierly
• clearly
• dearly
• nearly
• queerly
• yearly