semanticallyadv.

1892 F. M. Müller Anthropol. Relig. 398 This new etymology of Indra is therefore phonetically faulty, but it is likewise semantically untenable.

1895 Amer. Jrnl. Philol. 16 409 Every word, in so far as it is semantically expressive, may establish, by hap-hazard favoritism, a union between its meaning and any of its sounds.

1926 C. M. Doke Phonetics of Zulu Lang. 217 (caption) Words semantically alike but differing in tone.

1964 E. A. Nida Toward Sci. Translating xii. 258 The data are analyzed both semantically and structurally.

1991 Internat. Rev. Appl. Ling. in Lang. Teaching 29 273 Language learners are often unaware of the difference in meaning between two semantically related items of the target language.

2005 W. Safire in N.Y. Times Mag. 23 Oct. 32 In current usage, avian flu is used interchangeably with bird flu; both are semantically correct.

1939 El Paso (Texas) Herald-Post 9 June 4/2 The whole of history and literature abounds in ‘semantics’... ‘Some day I'll return this. Without that it would be stealing, but with that it is only borrowing.’ So Huck and Jim ‘semantically’ ‘borrowed’ their way down most of the Mississippi River.

1950 J. Steinberg Verdict of Three Decades iii. 521 Despotism can be re-packaged semantically as ‘new democracy’.

1960 Economist 15 Oct. 251/1 In Natal..there has been some talk of secession—semantically disguised because secession today bears a stigma it did not carry ten years ago.

1988 S. Tucker Memories Southern Women i. 52 Such descriptions [as ‘aristocratic’, ‘royal’, etc.] have been a traditional means of semantically dealing with blacks who do not fit the stereotype of a low-born person.

2010 Province (Vancouver) (Nexis) 28 Apr. a17 We quibble, procrastinate and semantically spar over the issue of global maternal health and abortion while thousands of women and children die every day.