Respectfully

How to spell respectfully

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce respectfully

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does respectfully mean?

1. adverbIn a manner that shows deference, courtesy, or polite regard for someone or something.

Respectfully in a sentence

• The staff listened respectfully as the retiring manager gave her final speech.

• He declined the invitation respectfully rather than ignoring it.

Where does respectfully come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb is built from the Latin verb respicere, which literally meant 'to look back at' or 'to regard', formed from re- 'back' and specere 'to look'. From the idea of looking back at someone came the sense of giving them careful regard and deference, and the noun respectus passed into English through Old French as 'respect' in the late 1300s. The adjective 'respectful', meaning full of respect, was formed in English in the late 1500s, and adding the adverb suffix -ly produced 'respectfully'. The same specere root that means 'to look' also gives us 'inspect', 'spectacle', and 'spectator', a useful reminder that the middle of the word is spelt with -spect-. The most common spelling trap is mixing it up with 'respectively', which means 'in the order given'; the two words look alike but the -fully ending here signals the manner of showing respect.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• spect (look, from Latin specere 'to look')
• -ful (full of)
• -ly (adverb suffix)