hypothetically
adv.used to talk about a situation that is not real or has not happened yet. You use it to imagine what might happen if something were true.
adv.in a manner that assumes a condition to be true, even if it is not necessarily the case. Often used to introduce a theoretical scenario or a conditional statement.
“Hypothetically, what would you do if you won the lottery?”
“If we hypothetically ignore the budget cuts, the project could be finished by next summer.”
“The economist argued that even hypothetically, the market would stabilize if the central bank intervened immediately, though such a scenario remains highly unlikely.”
“But hypothetically, this knowledge of harbor porpoise mating behavior and anatomy could be helpful to saving the vaquita one day.”
“And you can hypothetically pedal it, though I couldn’t find a way to do so without the electric assist.”
From hypothetical + -ly.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.