virtually

Adverb

virtually (comparative more virtually, superlative most virtually)

1. Almost but not quite.
   • With our Medicare supplemental insurance plan, there are virtually no claim forms to fill out. (Advertisement)
   • By surviving the first six minutes Hargreaves matched the total amount of playing time he had managed previously in virtually three years - and by scoring his first goal since April 2008 he set the hosts on their way to a fifth win of the season in all competitions.2011 September 21, Sam Lyon, “Man City 2-0 Birmingham”, in BBC Sport

   Synonyms:

   as good as, more or less, nearly, practically

   Antonyms:

   actually

2. In essence or functionally, but not in fact, formally, or technically.
   • virtually a member of the family

   Synonyms:

   effectively, practically

3. Of a subgroup of finite index.
   • In this case W has a diagram with 2 vertices and one edge labelled ∞, and is therefore the infinite dihedral group. Thus W is virtually ℤ.1998, Daryl Cooper, D. D. Long, A. W. Reid, “Infinite Coxeter Groups are Virtually Indicable”, in Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, volume 41, page 309
   • In this paper, we are mainly concerned with homogeneity in the class of finitely generated virtually free groups, i.e. finitely generated groups with a free subgroup of finite index.2018, Simon André, “Virtually free groups are almost homogeneous”, in arXiv, section 1
4. Of a covering space of finite degree.
   • Another class of small manifolds consists of those that are not virtually Haken (a manifold is virtually Haken if it is finitely covered by a Haken manifold).2002, Steven Boyer, “Dehn surgery on knots” (chapter 4), in R.J. Daverman, R.B. Sher, editors, Handbook of Geometric Topology, page 206
   • We call a hyperplane Y in a VH-complex X virtually clean if there exists a finite-sheeted covering map p : X̂ → X and a connected component Y ⊆ p⁻¹Y such that the hyperplane Ŷ of X̂ is clean.2017, Martin R. Bridson, Henry Wilton, “Hyperbolic Geometry and Geometric Group Theory”, in Advanced Studies in Pure Mathematics, volume 73, page 40
5. By computer or in cyberspace.

   Synonyms:

   cyberly, digitally