What's the difference between maybe and probably?

Maybe


Definition:

  • (adv.) Perhaps; possibly; peradventure.
  • (a.) Possible; probable, but not sure.
  • (n.) Possibility; uncertainty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Mike Ashley told Lee Charnley that maybe he could talk with me last week but I said: ‘Listen, we cannot say too much so I think it’s better if we wait.’ The message Mike Ashley is sending is quite positive, but it was better to talk after we play Tottenham.” Benítez will ask Ashley for written assurances over his transfer budget, control of transfers and other spheres of club autonomy, but can also reassure the owner that the prospect of managing in the second tier holds few fears for him.
  • (2) Maybe the world economy goes tits up again, only this time we punish the rich instead of the poor.
  • (3) But what they take for a witticism might very well be true; most of Ellis's novels tell more or less the same story, about the same alienated ennui, and maybe they really are nothing more than the fictionalised diaries of an unremarkably unhappy man.
  • (4) "Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain," Wallace wrote at one point, "because something that's dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and which most of us spend nearly all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from."
  • (5) Maybe it’s because they are skulking, sedentary creatures, tied to their post; the theatre critic isn’t going anywhere other than the stalls, and then back home to write.
  • (6) But we sent out reconnoitres in the morning; we send out a team in advance and they get halfway down the road, maybe a quarter of the way down the road, sometimes three-quarters of the way down the road – we tried this three days in a row – and then the shelling starts and while I can’t point the finger at who starts the shelling, we get the absolute assurances from the Ukraine government that it’s not them.” Flags on all Australian government buildings will be flown at half-mast on Thursday, and an interdenominational memorial service will be held at St Patrick’s cathedral in Melbourne from 10.30am.
  • (7) Just last week he said: "Maybe I'll be a bit more chilled about it this year.
  • (8) I’m probably still far too immature, but maybe as I get older I could consider it.
  • (9) Perinatal brain damage produced by early zinc deficiency followed by rehabilitation with adequate zinc appears to be long term, maybe permanent.
  • (10) As cryptographer Matthew Green told the New York Times, 'If we could get $500,000 kicked back to OpenSSL and teams like it, maybe this kind of thing won't happen again."
  • (11) The guy upstairs, I heard he was maybe affiliated with Islamic Jihad, but he wasn't there.
  • (12) We just hope that … maybe she’s gone to see her friend, talk some sense into her,” Renu said, adding that Shamima “knew that it was a silly thing to do” and that she did not know why her friend had done it.
  • (13) Maybe in some senses this is the new face of friendship.
  • (14) On the other hand, maybe Riley is just the beginning.
  • (15) "This is the guy we've all seen in Borders or HMV on a Friday afternoon, possibly after a drink or two, tie slightly undone, buying two CDs, a DVD and maybe a book - fifty quid's worth - and frantically computing how he's going to convince his partner that this is a really, really worthwhile investment."
  • (16) In the end, the emails from citizen scientists nailed the timing: “looks like it started maybe December 2015”; the severity: “I’ve seen dieback before, but not like this”; and the cause: “guessing it may be the consequence of the four-year drought”.
  • (17) Doesn’t it ever need a break?” “Maybe it likes it,” he shoots back, a twinkle in his eye.
  • (18) Musk revealed his love for Kerbal Space Program in a Q&A in Reddit , joking (or maybe not?)
  • (19) Maybe he was simply obeying orders, since Gordon Brown is not about to sanction a radical overhaul of the tripartite system of financial regulation he created.
  • (20) "Maybe that's why they can't afford anywhere bigger: because they're always late for work."

Probably


Definition:

  • (adv.) In a probable manner; in likelihood.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Without medication atypical ventricular tachycardia develops, in the author's opinion, most probably when bradycardia has persisted for a prolonged period.
  • (2) PMS is more prevalent among women working outside the home, alcoholics, women of high parity, and women with toxemic tendency; it probably runs in families.
  • (3) In dogs, cibenzoline given i.v., had no effects on the slow response systems, probably because of sympathetic nervous system intervention since the class 4 effects of cibenzoline appeared after beta-adrenoceptor blockade.
  • (4) Results indicated a .85 probability that Directive Guidance would be followed by Cooperation; a .67 probability that Permissiveness would lead to Noncooperation; and a .97 likelihood that Coerciveness would lead to either Noncooperation or Resistance.
  • (5) This may be due to efficient replacement of Leu by Phe at CUC (and, probably, CUU) codons throughout the genome.
  • (6) Quantitative determinations indicate that the amount of PBG-D mRNA is modulated both by the erythroid nature of the tissue and by cell proliferation, probably at the transcriptional level.
  • (7) This difference is probably secondary to the different rates of delivery of furosemide into urine.
  • (8) Estimates of the risk probability for each dose level and sacrifice time are found utilizing the sample likelihood as the posterior density.
  • (9) Because of the short detachment interval, and the absence of underlying pathology or trauma, the recovery process described here probably represents an example of optimum recovery after retinal reattachment.
  • (10) A re-examination of the literature indicates that many phagocytes previously unidentified or considered to be microglial cells are probably beta astrocytes.
  • (11) That suggests they are being replenished by sulphur dioxide, most probably from volcanoes.
  • (12) Asthma is probably the commonest chronic disease in the United Kingdom, and its attendant morbidity extends outside the possible scope of the hospital sector.
  • (13) It is concluded that fibroblast replication is an important mechanism leading to the pathologic fibrosis seen in graft versus host disease and, by analogy, probably other types of immunologically mediated fibrosis.
  • (14) Probability distributions are fitted to these data and it is shown that the log-series distribution best fits the data for two subgroups.
  • (15) The increased muscular strength in due to a rise of calcaemia, improved muscle contraction and probably also due to the mentioned nutritional factors.
  • (16) At 100 microM-ACh the apparent open time became shorter probably due to channel blockade by ACh molecules.
  • (17) Of the 16 cases, 14 (88%) were diagnosed as TSS or probable TSS by the attending physician, although only nine (64%) of the 14 diagnosed cases were given the correct discharge code.
  • (18) These results indicate that both racemic and L-baclofen inhibit trigeminal transmission in man, probably because they interfere with excitatory transmission through the interneurons of the lateral reticular formation.
  • (19) A second Scottish referendum has turned from a highly probable event into an almost inevitable one.
  • (20) However, since these levels were unaltered by reducing the antiandrogen dosage, the main action of the therapy is probably that of the antiandrogen within the target cells.