Horizontally

How to spell horizontally

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce horizontally

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does horizontally mean?

1. adverbIn a direction parallel to the ground, level from side to side rather than up and down.

Horizontally in a sentence

• The shelves are arranged horizontally along the entire wall.

• Slice the bread horizontally to make two thin layers.

Where does horizontally come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek horizon kyklos, the 'bounding circle', which named the line where the sky appears to meet the earth. The key part, horizon, came from the verb horizein, meaning 'to divide' or 'to set a boundary', built on horos, a 'limit' or 'border'. Latin took the word as horizon, and English absorbed the noun in the late 1300s, after which the adjective 'horizontal' (meaning parallel to the horizon, that is, flat and level) developed in the 1500s. The adverb 'horizontally' simply stacks the adverb-forming ending -ly onto that adjective. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle: writers hear a vague schwa and may forget the 'on' that the buried word horizon preserves, so remembering the horizon hiding inside keeps the letters in order.

How the word is built

• horizont- (from Greek horizon: bounding circle)
• -al (adjective)
• -ly (adverb)