Relentlessly

How to spell relentlessly

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce relentlessly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does relentlessly mean?

1. adverbIn a way that is harsh, constant, and never easing or stopping.

Relentlessly in a sentence

• The deadline pushed the team to work relentlessly for three weeks.

• The salesman pursued the contract relentlessly until the client signed.

Where does relentlessly come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb is built on the verb 'relent', which English assembled in the late 1300s from the Latin prefix re- ('back' or 'again') and lentus, a word that literally meant 'slow', 'pliant', or 'flexible'. To relent originally carried the idea of becoming soft or yielding, of bending where one had been rigid. Adding the suffix -less, meaning 'without', produced 'relentless', describing something that never softens or lets up, and the further -ly turned that adjective into the adverb 'relentlessly'. The buried Latin lentus also surfaces in 'lenient', another word about being soft or mild, which is a useful memory hook for the spelling. The trap is the run of suffixes: a single 't' in 'relent', then the doubled 's' of '-less', then the plain '-ly'.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• lent (from relent, to soften, via Latin lentus 'slow, flexible')
• -less (without)
• -ly (adverb suffix)