Partially

How to spell partially

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce partially

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does partially mean?

1. adverbTo a limited extent; in part but not completely.

Partially in a sentence

• The refund only partially covered the cost of the broken laptop.

• The road was partially blocked by fallen branches after the storm.

Where does partially come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb traces back to the Latin noun pars, meaning 'a part, share, or portion', whose stem 'part-' generated the late Latin adjective partialis, 'relating to a part'. That adjective travelled into English through Old French as 'partial' during the late 1300s, carrying two strands of meaning: 'incomplete, affecting only a part' and 'biased, favouring one side'. English then attached the native adverb-forming suffix '-ly' to produce 'partially', meaning 'to some extent, not wholly'. The same Latin 'part-' root sits inside a whole family of familiar words such as 'particle', 'partner', 'portion', and 'depart', which makes the spelling logical once you see the 'part' inside it. The trap for writers is the unstressed middle: the '-tial-' is pronounced like 'shul', so the silent 'i' and the doubled 'l' before '-ly' are easy to drop.

How the word is built

• part (a portion, from Latin pars)
• -ial (forming the adjective 'partial')
• -ly (adverb suffix)