verily

See also: věřily

English

WOTD – 25 October 2010

Etymology

From Middle English verraily, from verray (“true, very”) + -ly. More at very, -ly.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈvɛɹ.əl.i/, /ˈvɛɹ.ɪ.li/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Adverb

verily (not comparable) (archaic)

1. Truly; doubtlessly; honestly; in truth.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 13:21:

     When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.

   • 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 218:

     He would weep for hours together, and I verily believe that to the very end this spoilt child of life thought his weak tears in some way efficacious.

   • 1904, Mary Elizabeth Burt, Poems That Every Child Should Know, Preface:

     Are there three or four pleasing poems and are all the rest put in to fill up the book? Nay. verily! The poems in this collection are those that children love.

2. confidently, certainly

Synonyms

• (truly): soothly (obsolete), truly; see also Thesaurus:actually
• (confidently): certainly, confidently, wis (obsolete)

Translations

truly, doubtlessly

• Bulgarian: наистина (bg) (naistina)
• Danish: sandelig
• Esperanto: vere
• Finnish: varmasti (fi)
• French: vraiment (fr), véritablement (fr), sans aucun doute (fr), absolument (fr), indubitablement (fr), sans le moindre doute, en vérité (fr)
• Galician: abofé (gl)
• German: wahrlich (de)
• Greek: αληθώς (el) (alithós)

  Ancient: ἀληθῶς (alēthôs)

• Hebrew: אמן (he) (amén)
• Italian: veramente (it), davvero (it)
• Latin: vērē (la)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: sannelig

• Persian: همانا (fa) (hamânâ), هراینه (har-âyene) (bookish), به‌راستی (be-râsti), حقیقتاً (fa) (haqiqatan)
• Polish: zaprawdę (pl), zaiste (pl), doprawdy (pl)
• Portuguese: verdadeiramente
• Russian: и́стинно (ru) (ístinno)
• Spanish: verdaderamente (es), de verdad, de veras, realmente (es), sin duda alguna
• Swahili: kweli (sw)
• Tok Pisin: tru

confidently, certainly

• Esperanto: certe (eo)
• Finnish: varmasti (fi)
• French: certainement (fr), assurément (fr)
• German: gewiss (de), natürlich (de), sicher (de)
• Greek: βεβαίως (el) (vevaíos)
• Italian: certamente (it)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: sikkert (no), visselig (no)

• Russian: уве́ренно (ru) (uvérenno)
• Spanish: ciertamente (es), por supuesto (es)

Anagrams

• livery