mentally

adverb

men·​tal·​ly ˈmen-tᵊl-ē 

1

: in the mind

Mentally he promised himself that he would never again use a collar on any living creature.

—Brian Jacques

: using the mind

able to mentally calculate large sums

2

: with regard to the mind or its capacity

physically and mentally healthy people

a mentally competent adult

a mentally challenging activity

… if you try to hide the fact that you feel mentally inadequate, and so go around making jokes about your own dullness and acting as if it didn't bother you at all …

—David Foster Wallace

I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.

—Rick Riordan

Examples of mentally in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Between design fairs, reporting trips, and vacations that are never entirely not research, our team spent much of the year on the road—mentally filing away the details that separate a merely good hotel from one that lingers long after checkout. —Livia Caligor, Architectural Digest, 23 Dec. 2025

Your daily life becomes more flexible, surprising, unconventional, and mentally stimulating. —Dossé-Via Trenou, Refinery29, 23 Dec. 2025

Lue said that ongoing confidence stems from hard work, staying mentally tough and having the resolve to play better than their record. —Janis Carr, Oc Register, 23 Dec. 2025

But the breakup hit him hard, both physically and mentally. —Jordan Greene, PEOPLE, 22 Dec. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for mentally

• accidentally
• detrimentally
• fundamentally
• governmentally
• incidentally
• incrementally
• instrumentally
• sentimentally
• temperamentally
• coincidentally
• environmentally
• experimentally