Supposedly

How to spell supposedly

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce supposedly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does supposedly mean?

1. adverbAccording to what is generally assumed or claimed, but not necessarily true.

Supposedly in a sentence

• The new policy was supposedly designed to save money.

• He supposedly left the office before noon, but no one actually saw him go.

Where does supposedly come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb is built on the verb 'suppose', which English took from the Old French 'supposer' in the 1300s, itself shaped by the Latin 'supponere', meaning 'to put under' or 'to substitute'. That Latin verb combined 'sub', meaning 'under', with 'ponere', meaning 'to put or place', so the literal sense was of placing one thing beneath or in the position of another. Over time the idea drifted from physically placing something to mentally laying down an assumption, giving 'suppose' its modern sense of 'to assume' or 'to believe without proof'. The adverb 'supposedly' was formed by adding '-ed' and '-ly' to that base, and it emerged to mean 'as is generally assumed, though perhaps not truly so'. The spelling trap lives in that middle: the word is built honestly on 'supposed', so it ends in '-edly', not the non-standard '-ably' that many people mistakenly write.

How the word is built

• sup- (variant of sub-: under)
• pos (from Latin ponere: to put or place)
• -ed (past participle)
• -ly (adverb suffix)