Orderly

How to spell orderly

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce orderly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does orderly mean?

1. adjectiveNeatly and methodically arranged, or well behaved and free from disturbance.
2. nounAn attendant in a hospital who does non-medical tasks, or a soldier who carries out an officer's orders.

Orderly in a sentence

• adjective

  She kept the filing cabinet in orderly rows so any document could be found in seconds.

• noun

  The orderly wheeled the patient down to the radiology department.

• adjective

  The evacuation was calm and orderly, with everyone leaving the building in single file.

• noun

  The general sent his orderly to deliver the message to the front line.

Where does orderly come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on 'order', which came into English in the 1200s through Old French ordre from the Latin noun ordo (stem ordin-), literally meaning a row of threads in a loom and, by extension, any regular arrangement or rank. The native English suffix -ly was attached to give the sense 'in keeping with order', so something orderly is something that follows a tidy, regular arrangement. The adjective appeared in the 1500s, and the meaning broadened from physical tidiness to well-behaved conduct, as in an orderly crowd. By the 1700s the word also became a noun in military use: an orderly was a soldier who carried out orders for an officer, and the term later passed into hospitals for an attendant who keeps wards in order. The same Latin ordo underlies relatives such as 'ordain', 'ordinary', and 'coordinate', and remembering the base word 'order' is the surest guard against the spelling, since the trap is simply keeping the d before the -ly.

How the word is built

• order (from Latin ordo, ordinem: a row, arrangement)
• -ly (adjective/adverb suffix, meaning 'characterised by')