Openly

How to spell openly

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce openly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does openly mean?

1. adverbIn a frank, public, or unconcealed manner, without hiding anything.

Openly in a sentence

• The manager spoke openly about the budget cuts at the meeting.

• They now live openly as a couple after years of secrecy.

Where does openly come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows from the native Old English adjective 'open', which described something that was uncovered, unshut, or unconcealed and is closely tied to the verb meaning 'to make open'. To this Germanic base English added the productive suffix '-ly', a contraction of the older '-lice' meaning roughly 'in the manner of', which the language uses freely to turn adjectives into adverbs. The combination has meant 'in a frank, undisguised, or public way' since the medieval period. The same Germanic stem appears in close relatives such as the Dutch 'open' and the German 'offen', showing how widely the root spread across the Germanic languages. Because both halves are plain English building blocks, the spelling is regular: simply 'open' followed by 'ly', with no doubled letter and no dropped 'e'.

How the word is built

• open (not closed, frank)
• -ly (adverb suffix)