Positively

How to spell positively

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce positively

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does positively mean?

1. adverbUsed to emphasise that something is certainly or absolutely the case.
2. adverbIn an optimistic, constructive, or affirming way.

Positively in a sentence

• The manager was positively certain the invoice had been paid.

• The staff responded positively to the new flexible hours.

• The spa treatment left her feeling positively relaxed.

• She spoke positively about her chances of getting the promotion.

Where does positively come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb traces back to the Latin verb ponere, meaning 'to place' or 'to set down', whose past participle was positus. From positus the Latin formed positivus, an adjective meaning 'formally laid down' or 'settled by agreement', as opposed to something natural or merely supposed. English took up 'positive' through Old French in the 1300s, at first in the legal and philosophical sense of something definitely fixed or established, and the adverb 'positively' followed by adding the native -ly ending. Over the centuries the word drifted from 'definitely laid down' toward two everyday meanings: doing something in an affirming, optimistic way, and, as an emphatic intensifier, meaning 'absolutely' or 'without any doubt'. The same ponere root surfaces in a crowd of relatives such as 'compose', 'deposit', and 'opposite', and the steady -ive plus -ly stacking is what makes the spelling regular once the silent shift from 'positive' is remembered.

How the word is built

• posit- (from Latin positus, placed or set down)
• -ive (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)