seriously
/ˈsɪɹ.i.əs.li/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.94 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "He was hoping that we would take him seriously."
- "Jimmy jokingly called Bob a doofus. Bob took the insult seriously."
- "“I’ll qualify the statement, then,” she answered, with a laugh. “We have known each other for two ages—hers and mine. But seriously we are as dear to each other as sisters, and now that I am going to lose her I am almost heartbroken.”"
- "Masters and Johnson wanted their work to be taken seriously, and wanted to stay a step ahead of the morality police, so they tended to write in almost comically dense medicalese."
- "Jeremy, meanwhile, was the fun-lover, like me, who didn't always take it too seriously."
- "That was a seriously unpleasant thing to say."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *seh₁- Proto-Indo-European *-rós Proto-Italic *sēros Latin sērus Proto-Indo-European *-(i)yós Proto-Italic *-ijos Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius ? Proto-Indo-European *swer- Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Italic *swerjos? Latin sērius Proto-Indo-European *h₃ed- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *h₃édosder.? Proto-Italic *-ŏ̄dsos? Old Latin -ōssus Latin -ōsus Medieval Latin sēriōsus Old French serieuxbor. Middle English seryows Proto-Indo-European *leyg-der. Proto-Germanic *līkąder. Proto-Germanic *-līkaz Proto-Germanic *-ê Proto-Germanic *-līkê Proto-West Germanic *-līkē Old English -līċe Middle English -lech, -ly Middle English seryowslech English seriously From Middle English seriously, sereously, ceryously, seryowslech (“earnestly”), equivalent to serious + -ly.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: seriously
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈsɪɹ.i.əs.li/
- British English: /ˈsɪə.ɹi.əs.li/
Usage
Inflected Forms
more seriously (comparative)
most seriously (superlative)