Happily

How to spell happily

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce happily

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does happily mean?

1. adverbIn a cheerful or contented manner, or fortunately and without difficulty.

Happily in a sentence

• She chatted happily with her colleagues during the long lunch break.

• The children played happily in the garden all afternoon.

Where does happily come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This adverb is built on the adjective 'happy', which itself grew out of the Middle English noun 'hap', meaning luck, chance, or fortune. That 'hap' came into English from the Old Norse word 'happ', which meant good luck or a lucky turn of events, brought over by Norse settlers. Originally 'happy' described someone who was fortunate or favoured by chance rather than someone in a cheerful mood, and only later did the meaning settle on the feeling of contentment we know today. The adverb 'happily' was formed in the usual English way by adding the suffix '-ly' to the adjective, with the final 'y' of 'happy' shifting to an 'i' before the ending, which is exactly the spelling step writers have to remember. The same old root for luck still survives in everyday words such as 'happen', 'perhaps', 'haphazard', and 'mishap'.

How the word is built

• hap (luck/chance)
• -y (adjective suffix, giving 'happy')
• -ly (adverb suffix; the y changes to i)