Vastly

How to spell vastly

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce vastly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does vastly mean?

1. adverbTo a very great degree; by a wide margin.

Vastly in a sentence

• The new software is vastly faster than the version we used last year.

• Salaries in the capital are vastly higher than in the rural offices.

Where does vastly come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the adjective 'vast', which English borrowed in the late 1500s from the Latin vastus, a word that originally meant 'empty', 'desolate', or 'waste' before broadening to mean 'immense' or 'huge'. The same Latin root sits behind the English words 'waste' and 'devastate', a reminder that the idea of vastness once carried a sense of barren emptiness rather than simple bigness. Once 'vast' was established as an adjective of great extent, the everyday adverb suffix '-ly' was added to form 'vastly', meaning 'to a very great degree'. The spelling is regular and phonetic, so the only point to watch is that it keeps the single final 't' of 'vast' before the '-ly', giving 'vastly' rather than any doubled form.

How the word is built

• vast (from Latin vastus: immense, empty)
• -ly (adverb suffix)