Daily
adjectiveHappening, done, or produced every day.
How to spell daily
5 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce daily
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does daily mean?
- adjectiveHappening, done, or produced every day.
- adverbEvery day; once a day.
Daily in a sentence
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adjective
The nurse recorded his daily medication on a chart.
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adverb
The pharmacist told him to take the tablet daily with food.
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adjective
A daily commute of two hours left her exhausted by Friday.
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adverb
The bridge is inspected daily during the busy season.
Where does daily come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This word grows from the Old English noun dæg, meaning 'day', combined with the suffix -lic, which gave the adjective dæglic, 'occurring every day'. The Old English dæg traces back to the Proto-Germanic dagaz, a root shared with the German Tag and the Dutch dag, all describing the period of daylight. The adverbial and adjectival sense of 'happening once a day' was well established by the medieval period, and the modern spelling settled with the familiar -ly ending used for many adjectives and adverbs of frequency. The small spelling quirk is that the 'y' of day becomes 'i' before the suffix, giving daily rather than dayly, the same shift seen in gay to gaily. This pattern of swapping a final y for i before a suffix is a recurring English habit and the main thing to remember here.
How the word is built
- day (from Old English dæg)
- -ly (adverb/adjective suffix meaning 'recurring at intervals of')
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