Medically

How to spell medically

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce medically

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does medically mean?

1. adverbIn a way relating to medicine, illness, or the practice of treating health conditions.

Medically in a sentence

• The new employee was declared medically fit for the role after a thorough examination.

• The airline refused to fly him because he was not medically stable enough to travel.

Where does medically come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin medicus, meaning 'a physician' or 'a healer', which in turn grew from the verb mederi, 'to heal, to cure or to take measures'. From medicus came the adjective medicalis, describing anything 'relating to the practice of healing'. English borrowed the adjective 'medical' through French in the early seventeenth century, and the adverb 'medically' followed naturally by adding the native English ending -ly to that adjective. The same mederi root quietly survives in a family of familiar words, including 'medicine', 'remedy' and even 'meditate', which originally carried the sense of measuring or attending to something carefully. The spelling trap here is the join between the three parts: the adjective 'medical' already ends in -al, so the adverb simply stacks -ly on top to give the double 'l' in -ally, not a single 'l'.

How the word is built

• medic- (from Latin medicus: doctor, healer)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)