Actually

How to spell actually

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce actually

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does actually mean?

1. adverbIn fact; in reality, as opposed to what was assumed or expected.

Actually in a sentence

• The meeting was actually shorter than the agenda suggested.

• She actually finished the report a day ahead of the deadline.

Where does actually come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin actus, meaning 'a doing' or 'a deed', which came from the verb agere, 'to do, drive, or act'. From this grew the Late Latin adjective actualis, used to describe something 'active' or 'pertaining to action', and English borrowed it through Old French as 'actual' in the 1300s. At first it carried that older sense of 'active' or 'existing in deed rather than potential', a meaning still felt in philosophical contrasts between the actual and the merely possible. The adverb 'actually' formed in English by adding the familiar -ly ending, and over the centuries it drifted toward its modern job of insisting on the real state of affairs, as in 'what actually happened'. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the -tu- is pronounced like 'chu', and the doubled run of vowels in -ual followed by -ly trips up writers who expect a simpler 'actualy' or 'actualy'.

How the word is built

• act (from Latin actus: a doing, deed)
• -ual (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)