Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use theoretically in a sentence

40 example sentences · adverb

Theoretically means in theory; on paper. Example: “I haven't tested it, but theoretically it ought to fly.”

Examples of theoretically by meaning

adverbIn theory; on paper.

  • I haven't tested it, but theoretically it ought to fly.
  • Of course, it will never get -100 here like it does in Antarctica, but a 300-degree swing was still theoretically possible on a record-cold Minnesota morning–if we got the sauna hot enough.2019 February 8, Saunatimes Guest Posts, quoting Tyler, “Father and sons take a 280 degree f. sauna, documenting the only “300 Club” in...

adverbIn a theoretical manner.

  • I solved the problem theoretically rather than practically.

adverbIn theory though not necessarily in reality.

  • Rumors of an indictment had spread through this heavily gay and lesbian community since shortly after the theoretically secret investigation began in 1984.1985 December 14, Gordon Gottlieb, “L.A. Community Divided over Terrigno Indictment”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 22, page 10

More sentences with theoretically

  • Political principles are rarely absolute, as political logic holds an imperfect result by compromise is better than a theoretically perfect abstention from the political process in the opposition.From the entry political
  • It seems that the skeptical challenges, though theoretically unimpeachable, have objectionable practical consequences.2020 June 9, Kelly Arenson, The Routledge Handbook of Hellenistic Philosophy, Routledge, →ISBN. From the entry apraxia
  • While all games, theoretically, are exposed to a huge player-base before a single boxed copy is sold.2019 September 5, Tom Hoggins, “Gears 5: How Xbox's big Game Pass gamble could shape the future of the gaming industry”, in Chris Evans…. From the entry player-base
  • A single aphid can theoretically generate 1 heptillion descendants (that's 24 zeroes).2008, Organic Gardening, volume 55, number 5, page 17. From the entry heptillion
  • Superpredators theoretically arise from dysfunctional homes, inadequate schools, and morally bankrupt communities.2005, Gus Martin, Juvenile justice: process and systems. From the entry superpredator
  • Theoretically, that should slow her down and make her easier to catch.2005, Melissa M. Dudek, Catchers, Cows, & Nachos, page 46. From the entry B-reel
  • Exact global optimization of MAX-VFMC is theoretically possible via branchand-bound search.2004 March, Martin Jansche, “Learning Local Transductions Is Hard”, in Journal of Logic, Language and Information, volume 13, Dordrecht…. From the entry trequadragintillion
  • It is theoretically possible that structural ambiguity could be filtered out of natural languages.2001, Mark Sainsbury, chapter 1, in Logical Forms — An Introduction to Philosophical Logic, 2nd edition, Blackwell Publishing, →ISBN, §12…. From the entry artificial language
  • Theoretically speaking, the frame-based and frameless surgical localization system should have similar clinical application accuracy.1998, William M Wells, Alan C F Colchester, Scott Delp, Medical Image Computing and Computer-assisted Intervention. From the entry frameless
  • He had no knowledge of them except theoretically—that is to say, intellectually.1916, Mark Twain, chapter 8, in Albert Paine, editor, The Mysterious Stranger, New York: Harper & Bros., page 112. From the entry ignorant
  • Theoretically, the companies could have eventually pivoted their business models and recovered, or Japan’s economy could have started booming again, etc.2026 June 15, Noah Smith, “Will China, Inc. be zombified? A question surprisingly few people are asking”, in Noahopinion [Substack…. From the entry evergreening
  • But the anthrobots in the new study could, theoretically.2023 December 15, Will Sullivan, “Tiny ‘Robots’ Made From Human Cells Show Wound-Healing Potential. The so-called “anthrobots” can…. From the entry anthrobot
  • The TLI table showed how many persons a soldier with a weapon could theoretically kill in one hour.2021 October 20, Jennifer Tucker, “Now that guns can kill hundreds in minutes, Supreme Court should rethink the rights question”, in CNN…. From the entry one
  • In this paper, a plasmonic absorber consisting of a metal-dielectric-metal stack with a top layer of Sierpinski nanocarpet is theoretically investigated.2016, Ali Eshaghian, Sajjad AbdollahRamezani, Ata Chizari, Khashayar Mehrany, “Broadband, Polarization-insensitive and Wide-angle Optical…. From the entry nanocarpet
  • The functional form of these computations is not constrained in this definition, theoretically allowing for the representation of any intervariate relationship.2016, Tylar Murray, Eric Hekler, Donna Spruijt-Metz, Daniel E. Rivera, Andrew Raij, “Formalization of Computational Human Behavior Models…. From the entry intervariate
  • We derive our embarrassingly parallel VI algorithm, analyze our method theoretically, and demonstrate our method empirically on a few nonconjugate models.2015 October 14, Willie Neiswanger, Chong Wang, Eric Xing, “Embarrassingly Parallel Variational Inference in Nonconjugate Models”, in…. From the entry embarrassingly parallel
  • We derive our embarrassingly parallel VI algorithm, analyze our method theoretically, and demonstrate our method empirically on a few nonconjugate models..2015, Willie Neiswanger, Chong Wang, Eric Xing, “Embarrassingly Parallel Variational Inference in Nonconjugate Models”, in arXiv. From the entry nonconjugate
  • The fetal circulation is theoretically independent, but at the end of pregnancy, fetomaternal or fetofetal circulatory anastomosis may exist.2012, Claus Diebler, Olivier Dulac, Pediatric Neurology and Neuroradiology: Cerebral and Cranial Diseases, Springer Science & Business…. From the entry fetofetal
  • True, the noun ending would theoretically allow us to visualize the reaper as a woman as well, but we don't.1999, Karl S. Guthke, The Gender of Death: A Cultural History in Art and Literature, page 7. From the entry reaper
  • Exogenous administration of erythropoietin can, theoretically, improve endurance exercise performance in the same way as conventional blood doping procedures.1994, Herbert A. DeVries, Terry J. Housh, Physiology of Exercise for Physical Education, Athletics, and Exercise Science, WCB Brown &…. From the entry erythropoietin
  • Theoretically, ubiquitists will survive and specialists will disappear.1994, F. Veroustraete, Vegetation, modelling and climatic change effects, page 29. From the entry ubiquitist
  • A parallel multiplier could theoretically be realized as a two-level multiple-outway combinational network, but its cost would be prohibitive.1975, AR Meo, IEEE Transactions on Computers. From the entry outway
  • Theoretically each team is supposed to fight as hard as possible for its side in the congressional intermurals .1967, Marjorie Ewing Aghassi, Little Legislatures, page 375. From the entry intermural
  • Without prejudice against Urton's argument that khipus are theoretically capable of lexigraphic reference such as logosyllabography, I have found that actual cord lexigraphy remains conjectural.2004, Franck Salomon, The Cord Keepers: Khipus And Cultural Life In A Peruvian Village, →ISBN, page 28. From the entry lexigraphy
  • However, it should be noted that theoretically, the apparent nonrandom distance of the dispersal has evolved because of its advantage to the species.2000, United States Bureau of Biological Survey, United States Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service…. From the entry nonrandom
  • Sometimes the parties may die before they get justice, but theoretically all the cases are considered at one time or another anyway.[1984 March 13, Neal Smith, subcommittee chairman, Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies…. From the entry justice delayed is justice denied
  • In a Shan möng the power of the prince (saohpa, anglicized tsawbwa) is theoretically absolute but is really exercised by appointed ministers (amat).1968, “SHAN”, in Encyclopedia Britannica, volume 20, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 344, column 2. From the entry semidivine
  • These layers also permit visual observation of the well-known "gravitational waves," which were suggested by Helmholtz and have been investigated theoretically at some length.1951, Donald E. Kerr, editor, Propagation of Short Radio Waves [IEE Electromagnetic Waves Series; 24], London: Peter Peregrinus Ltd on…. From the entry gravitational wave
  • The Catholic is theoretically a Collectivist, a self-abnegator, a Tory, a Conservative, a supporter of Church and State one and undivisible, an obeyer.1914, George Bernard Shaw, “Preface for Politicians”, in John Bull’s Other Island, London: Constable, page xix. From the entry abnegator
  • In this respect, our familiar mentalistic vocabulary (viz. our talk of thoughts, feelings, and expectations) would be similar in important respects to other theoretically embedded vocabularies.2021, Daniel D. Hutto, “Folk Psychology as a Theory”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. From the entry mentalistic
  • We theoretically demonstrate the possibility of controlling nanoscale short pulse superfocusing based on the generation of radially polarized surface plasmon polariton mode of conical metallic tip.2015, P.A. Golovinski, V.A. Astapenko, E.S. Manuylovich, “Diffraction of Ultrashort Pulse on a Nanoscale Conductive Cone”, in arXiv. From the entry superfocusing
  • In encryption, theoretically only the user or program authorized to retrieve the data knows how to unshuffle the ciphertext and compile the data in its original sequence.2012, Tamara Dean, Network+ Guide to Networks, page 516. From the entry unshuffle
  • In a net-neutral future it should still be possible, theoretically, for anyone with a camera and some willing friends to shoot a D.I.Y. video and put it online.2011 March 25, Mike Hale, “A-List Stars Invade Digital Auteurs’ Space”, in The New York Times. From the entry net-neutral
  • Indeed, the error is similar to the “clbuttic effect” described above—an errant text filter attempting to “clean up” text by replacing offensive terms with theoretically more appropriate ones.2010, Benjamin Mako Hill, “Revealing errors”, in Glitch, Noise, and Jam in New Media Cultures. From the entry clbuttic
  • And from that we can conclude that in some parallel worlds, a machine to implement the Quantum Bogosort (theoretically the fastest possible sorting algorithm) has been invented.2007 January 22, Logan Kearsley, “How the mind plays tricks.”, in rec.arts.sf.composition (Usenet). From the entry quantum bogosort
  • Yet, with full ECN nonce functionality and totally unreliable behaviour, ACKing individual packets only would require the receiver to maintain state that could theoretically grow without bounds.2005, Michael Welzl, Network Congestion Control: Managing Internet Traffic, page 150. From the entry ack

Meaning of theoretically

  1. adverb In theory; on paper.
  2. adverb In a theoretical manner.
  3. adverb In theory though not necessarily in reality.

Full definition of theoretically

Questions about theoretically in a sentence

How do you use theoretically in a sentence?
Theoretically is used as an adverb. For example: “I haven't tested it, but theoretically it ought to fly.”
What is a short sentence with theoretically?
“I solved the problem theoretically rather than practically.”
What does theoretically mean?
Theoretically means in theory; on paper.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: theoretically (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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