Purely

How to spell purely

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce purely

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does purely mean?

1. adverbEntirely or wholly, with nothing else involved.

Purely in a sentence

• The decision was made purely for financial reasons.

• Their meeting at the airport was purely a coincidence.

Where does purely come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The base word comes from the Latin purus, which literally meant 'clean', 'clear', or 'unmixed', and could describe water free of sediment or metal free of alloy. It travelled into English through Old French as 'pur' during the 1200s, and English then added its own native adverb ending -ly to form 'purely', a pattern it uses everywhere to turn an adjective into an adverb. Over time the word broadened from the physical idea of cleanliness to the figurative sense of something done for one single reason, with nothing else mixed in, as in a purely practical decision. The same purus root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'pure', 'purity', and 'purify', so recognising the clean adjective 'pure' inside the word is the surest guard against misspelling it. The main trap is simply remembering to keep the final 'e' of 'pure' before adding -ly, since some adjectives drop it.

How the word is built

• pure (clean, unmixed)
• -ly (adverb suffix)