Temporarily
adverbFor a limited time only; not permanently.
How to spell temporarily
11 letters · 5 syllables
How to pronounce temporarily
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does temporarily mean?
- adverbFor a limited time only; not permanently.
Temporarily in a sentence
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The road is temporarily closed while crews repair the bridge.
-
She moved in with her parents temporarily after selling the flat.
Where does temporarily come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This word traces back to the Latin tempus, meaning 'time', whose stem appears as tempor- in many forms. From that came the Latin adjective temporarius, which described something lasting only for a time rather than permanently. English took the adjective 'temporary' in the sixteenth century and then built the adverb 'temporarily' on top of it by adding the familiar -ly ending. The very same Latin root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'tempo', 'temporal', and even 'tense' in grammar, all of which circle around the idea of time. The spelling trap is hidden in the middle and end: the unstressed -ar- can vanish in casual speech, and the -ily ending (not -ly) catches writers who forget that the base word already ends in -ary.
How the word is built
- tempor- (from Latin tempus, tempor-: time)
- -ary (adjective suffix: relating to)
- -ly (adverb suffix), with the -ily spelling that follows -ary
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