-ly
suffixEtymology
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.
Definitions
Used to form adjectives from nouns, the adjectives having the sense of "behaving like, or…
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.
- man + -ly → manly
- comrade + -ly → comradely
Used to form adjectives from nouns, the adjectives having the sense of "appearing like,…
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".
- bloom + -ly → bloomly
- muscle + -ly → muscly
Used to form adjectives from nouns specifying time intervals, the adjectives having the…
Used to form adjectives from nouns specifying time intervals, the adjectives having the sense of "occurring at such intervals".
- month + -ly → monthly
- day + -ly → daily
›+ 2 more definitionsshow fewer
Used to form adverbs from adjectives and nouns.
- sudden + -ly → suddenly
- eerie + -ly → eerily
- year + -ly → yearly
Used to form company or brand names.
- book + -ly → Bookly
- musical + -ly → Musical.ly
- clue + -ly → Cluely
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for -ly. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA