BRIEFLY

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

For a short time

Example:

was briefly associated with IBM

Classified under:

Adverbs

Pertainym:

brief (of short duration or distance)

Sense 2

Meaning:

In a concise manner; in a few words

Example:

to put it shortly

Synonyms:

briefly; concisely; in brief; in short; shortly

Classified under:

Adverbs

Pertainym:

brief (concise and succinct)

Credits

Context examples:

“The terms, your Royal Highness and gentlemen, are briefly these,” said he.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

These causes must be stated, though briefly.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Silver briefly agreed, and this emissary retired again, leaving us together in the dark.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I now related my history briefly but with firmness and precision, marking the dates with accuracy and never deviating into invective or exclamation.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

A hallucinogen formerly used as a veterinary anesthetic, and briefly as a general anesthetic for humans.

(Phencyclidine, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

Under stronger illumination, high pressure bubbles briefly form to push the droplets along a surface.

(Colour-changing artificial ‘chameleon skin’ powered by nanomachines, University of Cambridge)

Briefly, sequence-specific probes are hybridized to cells fixed on slides and the sequestered probe is visualized by a peroxidase reaction.

(Chromogenic In Situ Hybridization, NCI Thesaurus)

The team found that, after ejection from the asteroid's surface, the particles either briefly orbited Bennu and fell back to its surface or escaped from Bennu into space.

(NASA's OSIRIS-REx Explains Bennu Mystery Particles, NASA)

I will also allude very briefly to our river journey, up a wide, slow-moving, clay-tinted stream, in a steamer which was little smaller than that which had carried us across the Atlantic.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Upon the whole, she was very persuadable; and it being briefly settled among themselves how it might be done without neglecting his comfort—how certainly Mrs. Goddard, if not Mrs. Bates, might be depended on for bearing him company—Mr. Woodhouse was to be talked into an acquiescence of his daughter's going out to dinner on a day now near at hand, and spending the whole evening away from him.