Musically

How to spell musically

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce musically

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does musically mean?

1. adverbIn a way that relates to music, or in a tuneful and melodious manner.

Musically in a sentence

• The new recording is musically richer than the original demo.

• She described the production as musically ambitious but uneven in places.

Where does musically come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This adverb is built on 'music', which traces back through the Latin 'musica' to the Greek 'mousike', a phrase that literally meant 'the art of the Muses'. The Muses were the nine goddesses of poetry, song, and the arts, so 'mousike techne' first described any creative discipline they inspired before the word narrowed to the art of organised sound in particular. English took 'music' from Old French 'musique' in the 1200s, and over time the adjective 'musical' and then the adverb 'musically' were formed using the native English endings '-al' and '-ly'. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle: the '-al-' is barely sounded, so writers tend to drop it and produce the impossible 'musicly', when in fact the adverb is always the adjective 'musical' plus '-ly', giving the double pattern 'musically'.

How the word is built

• music (from Greek mousa: Muse)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)