Overwhelmingly

How to spell overwhelmingly

14 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce overwhelmingly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does overwhelmingly mean?

1. adverbTo a very great degree; by a very large margin or in a way that is impossible to resist.

Overwhelmingly in a sentence

• The committee voted overwhelmingly in favour of the new budget.

• Customers responded overwhelmingly to the redesigned website.

Where does overwhelmingly come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This adverb is built on the verb 'overwhelm', which joined the intensifying prefix 'over-' (meaning 'completely' or 'utterly') to the older Middle English verb 'whelmen', recorded around the 1300s and meaning 'to turn over, capsize, or cover something completely'. That root 'whelm' itself goes back to Old English and the idea of overturning a vessel so it engulfs whatever lies beneath, a sense still felt when waves are said to overwhelm a boat. By the later medieval period 'overwhelm' had broadened from literal submerging to the figurative crushing of a person by emotion, force, or sheer quantity. The adjective 'overwhelming' and then the adverb 'overwhelmingly' grew naturally from this, the adverb pointing to something done or true to an irresistible degree. The lone surviving 'whelm' is rare today, so most writers only ever meet the root inside this longer word, which is why the silent stretch of 'whelm' in the middle can trip up the spelling.

How the word is built

• over- (above, completely)
• whelm (to cover, engulf)
• -ing (present participle)
• -ly (adverb suffix)