Word.ws English Dictionary

writerly

writerly adjective: characteristic of a writer; using well-chosen words or well-crafted sentences.

Adjective

writerly (comparative more writerly, superlative most writerly)

  1. Characteristic of a writer; using well-chosen words or well-crafted sentences.
    • The article was writerly and professional.
    • Digital upstarts like Buzzfeed and The Verge are relying on “long-form” editors to create big features. Heralding “a coming renaissance of long-form journalism,” the twitchy news site Politico hired away the editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine last summer to commission writerly, deeply...2013 December 12, James Bennet, “Against 'Long-Form Journalism'”, in James Bennet, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 20...
  2. of or pertaining to a writer
    • the long road to writerly recognition is riddled with disappointment.2020 October 13, Beatrice Loayza, “Jack London gets an Italian makeover in the tragic and romantic Martin Eden”, in AV Club

Forms of writerly

comparativemore writerly
superlativemost writerly

Origin of writerly

From writer + -ly.

Questions about writerly

What does writerly mean?
Writerly means characteristic of a writer; using well-chosen words or well-crafted sentences.
What part of speech is writerly?
Writerly is an adjective.

Words near writerly in the dictionary

  1. writeresses
  2. writerish
  3. writerless
  4. writerling
  5. writerlings
  6. writerly
  7. writers
  8. writers' blocks
  9. writers' room
  10. writers' rooms
  11. writership

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: writerly (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: “writerly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/writerly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.