exactly

«exactly» in Mova's school dictionary: just right, not more and not less — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adverb (exactly)

meaning for a pupil

1) Exactly means just right, not more and not less. tree →

2) Exactly can mean in every way: exactly the same. tree →

3) «Exactly!» means yes, that is completely right. tree →

sense in the lessons

maths: an amount with nothing more or less; no rounding or estimating; exact time and measures; science: measure exactly; everyday life: exactly on time, exactly what I wanted

examples

• She has exactly $20. tree →
• The box holds exactly 12 eggs. tree →
• How many exactly? tree →
• It took exactly 2 hours. tree →
• The twins look exactly the same. tree →
• Measure exactly 100 ml of water. tree →
• That's exactly what I wanted! tree →
• The bus came at exactly 8 o'clock. tree →
• Exactly at midnight the window opened. tree →

note

Use the exact number; do not estimate or round. Trap: none special. «About» or «roughly» are the opposite: they ask for an estimate.

In the corpora

• Centipedes always have an odd number of pairs of legs, so no centipede has exactly 100 legs.
• Long before there were gardeners, robins followed wild boar rooting through the forest floor for exactly the same reason.
• Despite their name, no centipede has exactly one hundred legs, and most millipedes have far fewer than a thousand.
• Macadamia nuts can make dogs weak, wobbly and sick for a day or two, and nobody knows exactly why.
• The Rat: «The worst of it is, I don't exactly know where we are.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «exactly» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.