credibly

From credible + -ly.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɹɛdɪbli/, /ˈkɹɛdəbli/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (Southern England):

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credibly (comparative more credibly, superlative most credibly)

1. In a credible manner; believably.

   A suitor can credibly signal his love for a woman by offering her an expensive and extravagant gift.

   He was in a position to commit to a credibly conservative monetary policy.

   • 1993 July, Charles R. Morris, “It's Not the Economy, Stupid”, in The Atlantic‎^[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 28 November 2025:

     Bill Clinton was elected on an untenable premise: that it is the job of the President to manage the economy. Yes, that is what we have come to expect of Presidents; but this expectation, the author argues, is punishingly at variance with anything any President can credibly deliver[.]

2. Used to report the speaker's assessment of the credibility of a reported statement
   • 1989, The New York Times Magazine‎^[2], page 38:

     He [Mayor Koch] says he better understands the limits of government; less credibly, he says he has mellowed.

   • 1997, Vanity Fair‎^[3], volume 60, page 95:

     His deep-set eyes and expression of general despair lend him a look of utter dissolution—very credibly, he is dying from sexual desire.

   • 2003, Stanley Wells, Shakespeare Survey‎^[4], number 51, page 132:

     Perhaps less credibly she assumes that, as a necessary consequence of this move from the public space of the theatre to the private space of the closet, 'the emphasis shifted to subjective interpretation'

   • 2009, Anthony Everitt, Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome‎^[5], page 289:

     In his eyes, if he allowed things to continue as before, he would be little better than a male prostitute. All too credibly, he could imagine himself aging into the superannuated gigolo of Juvenal's satire.

   • 2013, Frank W. Brecher, American Diplomacy and the Israeli War of Independence‎^[6], page 171:

     Perhaps, and more credibly, he meant that, had he been at the department, he would have ensured that the president expressly cleared that instruction.

• incredibly