Remotely

How to spell remotely

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce remotely

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does remotely mean?

1. adverbFrom a distance, or to the slightest degree.

Remotely in a sentence

• The new system lets staff work remotely from home three days a week.

• The proposal was not remotely realistic given our budget.

Where does remotely come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin remotus, the past participle of removere, meaning 'to move back' or 'to take away', formed from re- 'back' and movere 'to move'. The adjective 'remote' entered English in the 1400s carrying the literal sense of something moved far off in distance, and from there it stretched to mean distant in time, relationship, or likelihood. The adverb 'remotely' was built by simply adding the ordinary English ending -ly to that adjective. Over time it gained a useful figurative life: to say a claim is not 'remotely' true is to say it falls far short by any measure, just as a remote village lies far from the centre. The same movere root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'motion', 'motor', and 'remove', and the silent practical trap in spelling 'remotely' is simply keeping the -te- from 'remote' before the -ly.

How the word is built

• re- (back, away)
• mot (from movere: to move)
• -e (adjective ending)
• -ly (adverb suffix)