roughly

comparative roughlier · comparative more roughly · superlative roughliest · superlative most roughly

1. In a rough manner; without kindness, softness, or gentleness.

   They treated the prisoners roughly [...] slashing pitilessly with their whips to drive them as wretched animals before them.

   1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 60

   Synonyms: harshly, rudely, severely, austerely

2. Unevenly or irregularly.
3. Without precision or exactness; imprecisely but close to in quantity or amount; approximately.

   Satanism can be divided, roughly, into two branches: the Luciferians and the Palladists.

   1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 259

   1 more example

   Of the roughly 400 emerging infectious diseases that have been identified since 1940, more than 60% are zoonotic: ie they came from animals. Throughout history this has been common.

   2013 December 6, Alok Jha, “A deadly disease could travel at jet speed around the world. How do we stop it in time?”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 26, page 27

   Synonyms: -ish, about, all but, almost, approaching, around, by and large, circa