Separately

How to spell separately

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce separately

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does separately mean?

1. adverbAs distinct individuals or items; not together or jointly.

Separately in a sentence

• The auditors reviewed each account separately before merging the totals.

• The twins were schooled separately for their first two years.

Where does separately come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb separare, meaning 'to pull apart' or 'to divide', which was formed from se- 'apart' and parare 'to prepare or make ready'. The adjective 'separate' reached English in the late 1300s through that Latin past participle separatus, and the adverb 'separately' was built later in English by adding the familiar -ly ending. The crucial spelling trap lives in the middle: the root par is buried under an unstressed schwa, so the syllable that should be spelled 'par' sounds like a vague 'er' and tempts writers into the misspelling 'seperately'. Remembering that the word shares its root with 'prepare' and 'apparatus', all containing that visible 'par', is the surest way to keep the 'a' in place. The same se- 'apart' prefix also appears in 'select' and 'secede', words about things being set off on their own.

How the word is built

• se- (apart)
• par (from parare: to make ready, prepare)
• -ate (adjective)
• -ly (adverb suffix)