Thoroughly
adverbIn a complete and careful way, leaving nothing out.
How to spell thoroughly
10 letters · 3 syllables
How to pronounce thoroughly
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does thoroughly mean?
- adverbIn a complete and careful way, leaving nothing out.
Thoroughly in a sentence
-
The inspector checked the wiring thoroughly before signing off.
-
She read the contract thoroughly before adding her signature.
Where does thoroughly come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This adverb is built on the adjective 'thorough', which is itself an old relative of the preposition 'through'. Both descend from the Old English 'thurh', meaning 'through' or 'across', so the original idea was of going completely from one side to the other. Over time 'thorough' settled into the sense of 'complete' or 'leaving nothing out', as in doing a job from start to finish. Adding the everyday adverb ending '-ly' gave 'thoroughly', recorded in English from the medieval period. The spelling trap lives in that inherited 'ough' cluster and the unstressed middle vowel, which is why writers so often slip and produce 'throughly' by accidentally borrowing the shape of 'through'.
How the word is built
- thorough (complete, from end to end)
- -ly (adverb suffix)
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.