initially

/ɪnˈɪʃə‍lˌi/

/ˌɪˈnɪʃəɫi/

[adverb]

initially

[ADVERB]

at first; at the beginning

synonyms : ab initio

Examples

1. The police were barking up the wrong tree when they initially suspected the wrong person of committing the crime.

2. He may have initially been attracted to your looks, but once he got to know you better, he realized that you're not his kind of person.

3. For our first entrepreneurial venture, we decided to cross the stream where it is shallowest by starting small and local rather than taking on a massive nationwide project initially.

4. As a young lawyer, I quickly learned that in a calm sea every man is a pilot when I struggled to handle a difficult case that required more expertise than I had initially thought.