Immediately

How to spell immediately

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce immediately

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does immediately mean?

1. adverbAt once, without any delay or intervening time.

Immediately in a sentence

• Please respond to the email immediately.

• Please respond immediately to this email.

• Immediately after the bell, the children rushed out.

Where does immediately come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin medius, meaning 'middle', the same root that gives us 'medium' and 'mediate'. Adding the negative prefix in- (which becomes im- before the letter m) produced the idea of having 'nothing in the middle', that is, no intervening step, space, or delay. Late Latin immediatus described something with no gap between it and the next thing, and Old French carried this through as immediat. English adopted the adjective 'immediate' in the late 1300s and built the adverb 'immediately' shortly after by adding the familiar -ly ending. Knowing that the core is medi, 'middle', helps explain the double letters: the im- prefix presses right up against the medi root, giving the doubled m that writers often drop.

How the word is built

• im- (not)
• medi (middle)
• -ate (adjective)
• -ly (adverb)