basically

[Buchmann]

    Besides "in lowest terms"  'basically' also means
"fundamentally." I have (over-)used it in this guise
for at least thirty years.

Peter Richardson wrote:

> >  I have also noticed an explosion of the use of the word "basically" as a
> > filler  I have always used it to mean that I am stripping a concept of
> > its nuances.
> "Conversate" seemed to attract all the attention here, but no one has
> taken aim at "basically." I agree that it strips an idea of its nuances;
> more pernicious, though, is the notion that the speaker cares not a whit
> for the listener's ability to deal with complexity, and that the
> speaker--well, you know, like, basically--has no time to waste explaining
> Peter R.