Centrally

How to spell centrally

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce centrally

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does centrally mean?

1. adverbIn or at a central position; in a way that is managed or organised from one main point.

Centrally in a sentence

• The apartment is centrally located, within walking distance of the station.

• All the company records are stored centrally on a single secure server.

Where does centrally come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin centrum, meaning the centre point of a circle, which the Romans in turn borrowed from the Greek kentron. In Greek, kentron literally meant a sharp point or a goad for driving cattle, and it came to describe the fixed leg of a pair of compasses, the spike around which the drawing arm sweeps. English took up centre and its relatives in the medieval period, and the adjective central was built on it by the seventeenth century to mean 'situated at or near the middle'. The adverb centrally simply adds the familiar -ly ending to that adjective. A useful spelling note is that even where American writers prefer the noun spelling 'center', the adverb is centrally in every dialect, because the -al and -ly endings attach to a single fixed stem.

How the word is built

• centr- (centre/centrum: a central point)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)