Excitedly

How to spell excitedly

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce excitedly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does excitedly mean?

1. adverbIn a way that shows eager enthusiasm or thrilled anticipation.

Excitedly in a sentence

• The children chattered excitedly about the upcoming holiday.

• She waved excitedly when she spotted her family at the arrivals gate.

Where does excitedly come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb is built on the verb 'excite', which English borrowed in the 1300s from Old French exciter, itself drawn from the Latin excitare, meaning 'to rouse, call forth, or stir up'. That Latin verb combined the prefix ex- (here meaning 'thoroughly' or 'out') with citare, a verb meaning 'to set in motion' or 'to summon', which is also the ancestor of words such as 'cite' and 'recite'. The original sense was strongly physical, as in stirring something into motion or rousing a person to action, before it softened into the modern emotional meaning of being keenly stimulated or thrilled. The adjective 'excited' was then formed with the -ed ending, and the adverb 'excitedly' grew from it with the ordinary -ly suffix. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle: writers hear the 'site' sound and may want a double letter or forget that the base is a tidy ex-cit-ed before the -ly is simply added on.

How the word is built

• ex- (out, thoroughly)
• cit (from citare: to rouse, set in motion)
• -ed (past participle adjective)
• -ly (adverb suffix)