Religiously

How to spell religiously

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce religiously

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does religiously mean?

1. adverbIn a way that is done conscientiously and without fail, as a fixed habit.
2. adverbIn a manner relating to faith, worship, or devotion to a religion.

Religiously in a sentence

• She backs up her files religiously every Friday afternoon.

• The family lived religiously, attending services and observing every fast.

• He religiously records every expense in a small notebook.

• The pilgrims walked the route religiously, pausing to pray at each shrine.

Where does religiously come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb traces back to the Latin noun religio, which described scrupulous devotion, reverence, or a binding sense of obligation toward the gods. The most popular ancient explanation links religio to the verb ligare, meaning 'to bind' or 'to tie', so that religion was understood as a bond that ties a person to the divine, although the Roman writer Cicero instead connected it to relegere, 'to read again' or 'to go over carefully'. From religio came the adjective religiosus, meaning 'devout' or 'conscientious', which passed into Old French as religious and then into English in the 1200s. The adverb 'religiously' was formed in English by adding the native -ly ending, and from its earliest use it carried both the literal sense of acting in a devout way and the figurative sense of doing something with unwavering, faithful regularity. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle: the -gious cluster sounds like a simple 'jus', which tempts writers to drop a letter or misorder the vowels.

How the word is built

• re- (intensive/again)
• lig (from Latin ligare: to bind)
• -ious (adjective suffix: full of)
• -ly (adverb suffix)