Word.ws English Dictionary

dearly

UK/ˈdɪəli//ˈdɪɹli/

dearly adverb: in a dear or precious manner.

dearly: An open book with writing on it
Photo by Mark Casey on Unsplash

Adverb

dearly (comparative more dearly or (rare) dearlier, superlative most dearly or (rare) dearliest)

  1. In a dear or precious manner.
    • the funeral of our dearly beloved sister
  2. In a dear or expensive manner.
    • a dearly priced item
  3. At great expense; dear.
    • He paid dearly for his mistake.
    • But I take solace in the fact that the public has seen the enormous mountain of evidence proving what Fox did, and Fox paid dearly for it.2023 April 21, John Poulos, “Dominion’s C.E.O.: Why We Settled the Lawsuit Against Fox News”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

dearly meaning in Malayalam

dearly in Malayalam

അരുമയായി, വാത്സല്യപൂർവ്വം

Examples of dearly in a sentence

  • He avoided being seen gazing at her chest, although he dearly longed to stare.
  • His comment was a misstep that could cost him dearly.
  • Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellow labourer.

All 29 example sentences with dearly

Forms of dearly

comparativemore dearly
superlativemost dearly
comparative (rare)dearlier
superlative (rare)dearliest

Origin of dearly

From Middle English derely, deorliche, from Old English dēorlīċe (“worthily, richly”), equivalent to dear + -ly.

Words formed from dearly

Phrases with dearly

Questions about dearly

What does dearly mean?
Dearly means in a dear or precious manner.
What is dearly in Malayalam?
Dearly in Malayalam is അരുമയായി, വാത്സല്യപൂർവ്വം. See Dearly meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is dearly?
Dearly is an adverb.
How do you pronounce dearly?
Dearly is pronounced /ˈdɪɹli/ (US).

Words near dearly in the dictionary

  1. dearlier
  2. dearliest
  3. dearling
  4. dearlings
  5. Dearlove
  6. dearly
  7. dearly departed
  8. dearm
  9. Dearman
  10. dearmed
  11. dearming

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dearly (page history and authors); dearly (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-dearly.ogg.

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