Word.ws English Dictionary

-ibly

-ibly suffix: used to form adverbs corresponding to adjectives that end in -ible.

Suffix

-ibly

  1. Used to form adverbs corresponding to adjectives that end in -ible.
    • audible → audibly

Forms of -ibly

alternative form-ably

Origin of -ibly

Euphonic blend of -ible + -ly, due to difficulty of pronouncing *-iblely. Compare same sound change in unrelated feebly, nimbly, and nobly.

Questions about -ibly

What does -ibly mean?
-ibly means used to form adverbs corresponding to adjectives that end in -ible.
What part of speech is -ibly?
-ibly is a suffix.

Words near -ibly in the dictionary

  1. -iatrics
  2. -iatry
  3. -ibilities
  4. -ibility
  5. -ible
  6. -ibly
  7. -ic
  8. -ica
  9. -ical
  10. -icam
  11. -icase

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -ibly (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “-ibly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-ibly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.