Word.ws English Dictionary

matter of factly

matter of factly is the alternative form of matter-of-factly.

Meaning of matter-of-factly

Adverb

matter-of-factly (not comparable)

  1. As though stating a fact.
    • "I took the liberty of inviting somebody else to have dinner with us," Stallman said, matter-of-factly, giving me the same cat-like smile he gave me back in that Palo Alto restaurant.2002, Sam Williams, Free as in Freedom, Epilogue
  2. As though the situation is normal and not unusual; not dramatically or fancifully.
    • He was not of the East; and he came of a breed who fought devils and wizards as promptly and matter-of-factly as they battled human foes.1934, Robert E. Howard, The People of the Black Circle

Forms of matter of factly

comparativemore matter of factly
superlativemost matter of factly

Questions about matter of factly

What is matter of factly the alternative form of?
Matter of factly is the alternative form of matter-of-factly.

Words near matter of factly in the dictionary

  1. matter
  2. matter at hand
  3. Matter of Britain
  4. matter of course
  5. matter of fact
  6. matter of factly
  7. matter of law
  8. matter of life and death
  9. matter of life or death
  10. matter of record
  11. matter of time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: matter of factly (page history and authors); matter-of-factly (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: “matter of factly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/matter_of_factly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.