Lonely

How to spell lonely

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce lonely

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lonely mean?

1. adjectiveFeeling sad because of a lack of company, or describing a place that is isolated and far from others.

Lonely in a sentence

• Working from home for months left him feeling lonely and cut off from colleagues.

• The cottage sat on a lonely stretch of coast, miles from the nearest village.

Where does lonely come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grew out of 'lone', which itself is a shortened form of 'alone'. 'Alone' was originally two Old English words, 'all' and 'an' (meaning 'one'), pressed together to mean 'all by oneself' or 'completely one'. By the late 1500s writers had clipped 'alone' down to the standalone adjective 'lone', and Shakespeare is among the earliest to use 'lonely' with the adjective suffix '-ly' attached. At first it simply meant 'solitary' or 'unaccompanied', describing a single traveller or an isolated place, but over time it gathered the warmer emotional sense of sadness felt through lack of company. The spelling is gentler than its sound suggests: the silent shift from 'alone' explains why it is a single 'l' at the start, not the doubled letters people sometimes expect.

How the word is built

• lone (from 'alone', literally 'all one')
• -ly (adjective suffix)