-ly
suffix ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Used to form adjectives from nouns, the adjectives having the sense of "behaving like, or having a nature typical of what is denoted by the noun" Similar in meaning to -like but most often paired with animate nouns. morpheme
"man + -ly → manly"
- 2 Used to form adverbs from adjectives and nouns. morpheme
"sudden + -ly → suddenly"
- 3 Used to form adjectives from nouns, the adjectives having the sense of "appearing like, resembling, or having the likeness of what is denoted by the noun". morpheme
"bloom + -ly → bloomly"
- 4 Used to form company or brand names. morpheme
"book + -ly → Bookly"
- 5 Used to form adjectives from nouns specifying time intervals, the adjectives having the sense of "occurring at such intervals". morpheme
"month + -ly → monthly"
Example
More examples"irretrievable + -ly → irretrievably"
Etymology
From Middle English -ly, -li, -lik, -lich, -like, from Old English -līċ, from Proto-West Germanic *-līk, from Proto-Germanic *-līkaz (“having the body or form of”), from *līką (“body”) (whence lich). In form, probably influenced by Old Norse -ligr (“-ly”) (Norwegian Bokmål -lig, Faroese -ligur, Icelandic -legur). Cognate with Dutch -lijk, German -lich, Danish -lig and Swedish -lig. Doublet of -like, more at like.
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *-līkê Old English -līċe Middle English -ly English -ly From Middle English -ly, -li, -liche, from Old English -līċe.
More for "-ly"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.