Definitely or definately: which is correct?
Standard form: definitely — Non-standard: definately / definitly / definetly. Definitely = without doubt, clearly, in a definite way.
- Part of speech
- adverb
- Source
- Merriam-Webster
Why
Merriam-Webster: definitely is definite + -ly, and definite keeps the i of its Latin root finis (an end) — the word finite sits inside it. There is no a anywhere in the word.
Examples
- I will definitely be there by nine.
- This is definitely the better option.
Wrong → right
Native spelling engine
- Checked against
- Merriam-Webster / Oxford
- Spelling authority
- Merriam-Webster · Oxford English Dictionary / Oxford spelling · SCOWL
- Commonly confused and non-standard forms
- 64
- Dictionary
- Hunspell en_US / en_GB / en_AU / en_CA · Dictionary license: MIT AND BSD (SCOWL combined licence)
Commonly confused words
Commonly confused words are pairs or groups that sound or look alike but differ in meaning or grammar, such as affect and effect, its and it’s, or principal and principle. Each entry here explains the difference in plain words, shows it in two example sentences and names the convention it follows: Merriam-Webster for American English, Oxford for British English. Spelling variants such as colour and color are marked as correct in their own variety, not as errors.
Related entries
- Standard form: separateNon-standard: seperate, seprate
- Standard form: independentNon-standard: independant, indepedent
- Standard form: a lotNon-standard: alot
- Standard form: accommodateNon-standard: accomodate, acommodate, acomodate
- Desert or dessert
- Standard form: embarrassNon-standard: embarass, embarras