What's the difference between literally and virtually?

Literally


Definition:

  • (adv.) According to the primary and natural import of words; not figuratively; as, a man and his wife can not be literally one flesh.
  • (adv.) With close adherence to words; word by word.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) They are just literally lying.” In August Microsoft severed its ties, saying Alec’s stance on climate change and several other issues “conflicted directly with Microsoft’s values”.
  • (2) Estimated fluid consumption dropped from 10 liters to 4 liters daily and incidents of hyponatremia decreased by 62%.
  • (3) Resting plasma epinephrine and norepinephrine levels were 13.1 and 2.1 nmol liter-1 for the marine toad (Bufo marinus).
  • (4) And we literally had hundreds of thousands of them."
  • (5) Standard additions are unnecessary; Pt concentrations are read from a calibration chart of peak heights, which is linear up to 1.6 mg per liter.
  • (6) Communication issues in obtaining organ donation consent were examined, with particular focus on what are literally life-and-death decisions.
  • (7) It could still be terrorism but it looks as if the aircraft went out of control because the controls were literally burning up.
  • (8) A novel vector was employed which permits rapid and highly efficient cleavage of the GST fusion protein yielding 10 mg of purified PurH product per liter of bacterial culture.
  • (9) You literally never see that at political rallies, though obviously at Tea Party ones they are there all the time."
  • (10) An empirical rate expression was developed from experimental data which led to a prediction that the natural rate of oxidation in the ocean is about 0.023 micromoles of As(III) per liter each year.
  • (11) A technology for preparation of purified concentrates of rabies virus has been developed permitting to use simultaneously dozens of liters of tissue culture virus-containing fluid for the preparation of a concentrate.
  • (12) The maximum effect was obtained with 10(-7) molar gibberellic acid, whereas concentrations greater than 5 x 10(-7) mole per liter were inhibitory.
  • (13) Years ahead of its time, it saw each song presented theatrically, the musicians concealed in the wings (although Bowie said that they kept creeping on to the stage, literally unable to resist the spotlight) and with Bowie performing on a cherry-picker and on a giant hand, both of which kept breaking down.
  • (14) Some women attended the protest wearing jeans and T-shirts, while others took the mission of reclaiming the word "slut" – one of the stated objectives of the movement – more literally and turned out in overtly provocative fishnets and stilettos.
  • (15) But nobody got the reference and "the next day it was literally on CNN".
  • (16) 1.57pm BST Lap 36: Punchy stuff from Jules Bianchi up to 13th, literally bumping his way through Kobayashi on the inside.
  • (17) The majority of children came from low socio-economic homes (61%) with mostly illiterate or semi-literate mothers.
  • (18) As compared with the normoglycemic patients, the patients with hypoglycemia had elevated median plasma concentrations of glucagon (44 vs. 11 pmol per liter; P = 0.001), epinephrine (3400 vs. 1500 pmol per liter; P = 0.012), norepinephrine (7500 vs. 2900 pmol per liter; P = 0.002), and lactate (3.5 vs. 2.1 mmol per liter; P = 0.020) and similar alanine and beta-hydroxybutyrate concentrations.
  • (19) Finally, poliovirus experimentally seeded in 20 liters of tape water was recovered from Johns-Manville D79-Johns-Manville D39 or Johns-Manville D79-Filterite 0.45 micron 142-mm filter combinations was a efficiencies of 86 and 85%, respectively.
  • (20) Results concerning existence and uniqueness of equilibria, stability of the equilibria, and boundedness of solutions suggest that "compensatory" systems might not be compensatory in the literal sense.

Virtually


Definition:

  • (adv.) In a virtual manner; in efficacy or effect only, and not actually; to all intents and purposes; practically.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Virtually every developed country has some form of property tax, so the idea that valuing residential property is uniquely difficult, or that it would be widely evaded, is nonsense.
  • (2) The Nazi extermination of Jews in Lithuania (aided enthusiastically by local Lithuanians) was virtually total.
  • (3) There was virtually no difference in a set of subtypic determinants between the serum and liver.
  • (4) We identified four distinct clinical patterns in the 244 patients with true positive MAI infections: (a) pulmonary nodules ("tuberculomas") indistinguishable from pulmonary neoplasms (78 patients); (b) chronic bronchitis or bronchiectasis with sputum repeatedly positive for MAI or granulomas on biopsy (58 patients, virtually all older white women); (c) cavitary lung disease and scattered pulmonary nodules mimicking M. tuberculosis infection (12 patients); (d) diffuse pulmonary infiltrations in immunocompromised hosts, primarily patients with AIDS (96 patients).
  • (5) Thin films (OD approximately 0.7) of glucose-embedded membranes, prepared as a control, showed virtually 100% conversion to the M state, and stacks of such thin film specimens gave very similar x-ray diffraction patterns in the bR568 and the M412 state in most experiments.
  • (6) The pathway of ketogenesis in renal cortex must differ from that of the liver, as beta-hydroxy-beta-methylglutaryl-CoA synthetase is virtually absent from the kidney.
  • (7) The diet increased the formation of a cholesterol-rich very low density lipoprotein (VLDL), decreased high density lipoprotein (HDL)-associated cholesterol and phospholipids, but had virtually no effect on low density lipoprotein (LDL)-lipids.
  • (8) Reconstituted freeze dried allogeneic skin grafts contained virtually no blood, a phenomenon possibly analogous to the 'no reflow' phenomenon of microsurgery.
  • (9) Endotoxin is virtually devoid of effects at the metastatic level.
  • (10) When collateral marginal vessels were eliminated, adjacent arterial blood flow decreased to control levels and venous flow virtually stopped.
  • (11) In contrast, the fast block by internal TEA+ appeared virtually independent of voltage.
  • (12) Mice homozygous for mutations at either locus exhibit several phenotypic abnormalities including a virtual absence of mast cells.
  • (13) Removal of bPTH by washing the membranes virtually abolished activity, but washing after addition of bPTH plus Gpp(NH)p did not prevent continued accumulation of cAMP.
  • (14) When this is done it is evident that virtually all the calculated risk can be attributed to naturally occurring carcinogens in the diet.
  • (15) "We were the ones with the most over-indebted banks, the most over-indebted households and we had the biggest budget deficit of virtually any country, anywhere in the world.
  • (16) At a dose comparable to that given in vivo, cellular proliferation and antibody production were virtually eliminated in a secondary response in vitro.
  • (17) This was a highly significant (p less than 0.0001) predictor of 5-year total mortality, whose ascertainment was virtually complete.
  • (18) Serum gamma-GT was virtually unaffected by Triton X-100 at a concentration of 5% whereas urinary gamma-GT was 10-15% activated under similar conditions.
  • (19) When each overburdened adviser has an average caseload of 168 people, it is virtually impossible for individuals to be given any specialised support or treatments tailored to particular needs.
  • (20) She said since then HMRC had created the largest virtual call centre in the world that enabled 20,000 HMRC staff to answer calls at any one time.