Publicly or publically: which is correct?
Standard form: publicly — Non-standard: publically. Publicly = in public, openly, or by the public or the state.
- Part of speech
- adverb
- Source
- Oxford / Merriam-Webster
Why
Oxford gives publicly as the adverb: adjectives ending in -ic normally form adverbs with -ically (basically, specifically), but public is the long-established exception and takes -ly alone. Merriam-Webster also gives publicly as the adverb of public, so it is the safe spelling in every variety.
Examples
- The minister apologised publicly for the error.
- The results will be published publicly next week.
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: definitelyNon-standard: definately, definitly, definetly
- Standard form: separateNon-standard: seperate, seprate
- Standard form: a lotNon-standard: alot
- Standard form: accommodateNon-standard: accomodate, acommodate, acomodate
- Desert or dessert
- Standard form: embarrassNon-standard: embarass, embarras