Faithfully

How to spell faithfully

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce faithfully

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does faithfully mean?

1. adverbIn a loyal, reliable, or accurate manner; also the conventional close of a formal letter.

Faithfully in a sentence

• She faithfully recorded every transaction in the ledger.

• The formal letter ended with yours faithfully above his signature.

Where does faithfully come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The base word faith reached English in the early 1200s through Old French feid or fei, which descended from the Latin fides, meaning trust, belief, or good faith. That Latin noun was tied to the verb fidere, meaning to trust, the same root that gives us confide and fidelity. By the late Middle Ages the adjective faithful had formed, describing someone full of loyalty or true to a promise, and adding the ordinary adverb ending -ly produced faithfully, meaning in a loyal or accurate manner. The spelling trap lives at the seam: faith keeps its silent th and ai, then -ful is written with a single l even though the adverb -ly then supplies a second one, giving the doubled looking faithfully. It became a fixed formula in British letter writing, where Yours faithfully closes a letter that began with a formal Dear Sir or Madam.

How the word is built

• faith (from Latin fides: trust, belief)
• -ful (full of)
• -ly (adverb suffix)