Racially

How to spell racially

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce racially

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does racially mean?

1. adverbIn a way that relates to race or to the differences and relations between racial groups.

Racially in a sentence

• The new policy was designed to make hiring less racially biased.

• The city has grown more racially diverse over the past decade.

Where does racially come from?

Language of origin: French

This adverb is built on the English noun 'race', which arrived in the 1500s from the French race, meaning a group of people, animals, or plants with a shared descent. The French word in turn most likely came from the Italian razza, a term for a breed or lineage, though the deeper origin of razza is genuinely uncertain and still debated by etymologists. English first formed the adjective 'racial' in the late nineteenth century, adding the Latin-derived suffix -ial to mean 'relating to race', and the adverb 'racially' followed naturally with the everyday suffix -ly. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the silent 'e' of 'race' is dropped before -ial, and the soft 'c' is what gives the word its s-sound, so writers must remember the single c and the -ially ending rather than spelling it the way it sounds.

How the word is built

• race (from French race, group of people)
• -ial (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)