roughly

adverb

rough·​ly ˈrə-flē 

1

: in a rough manner: such as

a

: with harshness or violence

treated the prisoner roughly

b

: in crude fashion : imperfectly

roughly dressed lumber

2

: without completeness or exactness : approximately

roughly 20 percent

Synonyms of roughly

• approximately
• about
• around

Examples of roughly in a Sentence

Roughly translated, it means “hurry up!”.

The new product is modeled roughly on an earlier design.

He threw the package roughly in the truck.

The guard told us roughly that we had to stand back.

Recent Examples on the Web

The total cost for the stadium is estimated at roughly $3 billion, which doesn’t include the cost of practice facilities. —Benjamin Wheeler, Kansas City Star, 26 Dec. 2025

Shares have plunged roughly 34% since the beginning of the year. —Liz Napolitano, CNBC, 26 Dec. 2025

Thimerosal, meanwhile, was largely phased out of childhood vaccines in 2001, and under Kennedy’s leadership, HHS in July pulled the ingredient from the roughly 5% of flu vaccines that still had it. —Aria Bendix, NBC news, 26 Dec. 2025

Per-rack demand has increased from roughly 100 kW to more than 1 MW in some deployments. —Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 25 Dec. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for roughly

• gruffly