Competitively

How to spell competitively

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce competitively

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does competitively mean?

1. adverbIn a way that involves rivalry, or at a level able to match rivals, especially on price or performance.

Competitively in a sentence

• The new supplier prices its parts very competitively against the larger firms.

• She trained for years so she could swim competitively at the national level.

Where does competitively come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb traces back to the Latin verb competere, which combined com- 'together' with petere 'to seek, to strive, or to aim for'. In its earliest Latin sense competere meant to come together or to coincide, but it also carried the idea of several people striving toward the same goal at once, which is how the notion of rivalry attached to it. English took the adjective 'competitive' from this root in the seventeenth century, and the adverb 'competitively' followed naturally by adding the familiar -ly ending. The same petere root sits inside a surprising family of English words, including 'appetite', 'petition', and 'repeat', all of which involve seeking or reaching after something. For spelling, it helps to remember the buried 'pet' in the middle and the two short, unstressed vowels around it, which is where writers most often slip.

How the word is built

• com- (together)
• pet (from Latin petere: to seek, to strive)
• -itive (forming an adjective)
• -ly (adverb suffix)