Utterly

How to spell utterly

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce utterly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does utterly mean?

1. adverbCompletely, totally, or absolutely, with no qualification.

Utterly in a sentence

• The team was utterly exhausted after the overnight shift.

• The new pricing plan is utterly confusing to most customers.

Where does utterly come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English adjective uttera, meaning 'outer' or 'exterior', which was the comparative form of ut, the ancestor of the modern word 'out'. In early use it described something on the outside, but the sense gradually deepened into 'extreme' and then 'complete' or 'absolute', the idea being that something carried all the way to its outermost limit. By the time the adverb 'utterly' was formed with the familiar -ly ending, it simply meant 'totally' or 'without any reservation'. The same root survives in the verb 'utter', meaning to speak out, since speaking pushes words out into the air. The doubled t and the plain -ly ending are the only points worth watching when spelling it.

How the word is built

• utter (Old English uttera: outer, complete)
• -ly (adverb suffix)