Sweetly

//ˈswiːtli// adv

adv ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    With a sweet taste or aroma.
  2. 2
    In a sweet or pleasant manner.

    ""No, Auntie," said Hardman, sweetly, seriously."

  3. 3
    Nicely; finely; excellently.

    "Sitting in the seat with the engine off before that day, the gears slid in so sweetly, and double de-clutching was so easy, I had done it a million times."

Adverb
  1. 1
    in an affectionate or loving manner (‘sweet’ is sometimes a poetic or informal variant of ‘sweetly’) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
graciouslysugarilysugarilysweet

Example

More examples

"While the bureaucracy comes up with sweetly technical terms like "less advantaged," the slums brim with malcontent."

Etymology

From Middle English swetly, swetely, sweteliche, from Old English swētlīċe (“sweetly; pleasantly”), equivalent to sweet + -ly. Cognate with Old High German swuozlīhho (“sweetly”), Icelandic sætlega (“sweetly; with gratitude”), German süßlich (“sweetish; sugary”), Dutch zoetelijk (“sentimental”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.