Gracefully

How to spell gracefully

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce gracefully

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gracefully mean?

1. adverbIn a smooth, elegant, and dignified manner.

Gracefully in a sentence

• The dancer moved gracefully across the stage during the rehearsal.

• She accepted the criticism gracefully and thanked the panel for their time.

Where does gracefully come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word builds on 'grace', which English took from Old French grace in the 1100s, itself descended from the Latin gratia, meaning 'favour', 'kindness', or 'pleasing quality'. That Latin noun came from gratus, an adjective meaning 'pleasing' or 'thankful', a root that also gives us 'gratitude', 'grateful', and 'congratulate'. By the 1500s English had added the native suffix -ful to make 'graceful', literally 'full of grace', and the adverb 'gracefully' followed naturally to describe movement or behaviour done with ease and elegance. The spelling trap sits in the joins: 'grace' keeps its silent final e until -ful arrives and trims it, and writers must remember that -ful here has only one l, while the adverbial -ly then supplies the second, giving the doubled letters of '-fully'.

How the word is built

• grace (from Latin gratia: favour, charm)
• -ful (full of)
• -ly (adverb suffix)