Brutally

How to spell brutally

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce brutally

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does brutally mean?

1. adverbIn a savage, harsh, or unsparingly direct manner.

Brutally in a sentence

• The manager was brutally honest about the company's losses.

• The new recruits found the training schedule brutally demanding.

Where does brutally come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin adjective brutus, which literally meant 'heavy', 'dull', or 'stupid', and was used of things lacking reason or sensitivity. The Romans even turned it into a personal name; the senator Brutus who joined the plot against Julius Caesar carried it. From brutus came medieval Latin brutalis and then Old French brutal, which English adopted in the late 1400s with the sense 'resembling a brute beast', and so savage or unfeeling. Adding the native English adverb ending -ly produced 'brutally', describing an action done in a cruel, harsh, or unsparingly direct way. The spelling trap sits in the seam between the parts: the adjective 'brutal' ends in a single l, and 'brutally' simply stacks the adverbial -ly on top, giving the doubled l that writers often drop or over-correct.

How the word is built

• brut- (from Latin brutus: heavy, dull, unfeeling)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)