The adjective lengthy is defined in the Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus as ‘of relatively great or tiresome extent or duration’. Some shorter meanings are; long; drawn-out; prolix; verbose and tedious. Here is an example of lengthy being used in a sentence:
The best man gave such a lengthy speech, that everyone fell asleep.
Lengthily, on the other hand, is an adverb; however, it’s very rarely used. Although this word is in the Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus, one of the only places where I could find a definition was on the audio english site http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/lengthily.htm which defines lengthily as “in a lengthy or prolix manner” with the synonym being “at length”. The two example sentences that the site gives are:
- The argument went on lengthily
- She talked at length about the problem
I must admit I had never heard of the word lengthily before today, but could now use it quite confidently in a sentence.
Hope you have enjoyed reading this. I blog daily so please don’t forget to come back tomorrow to learn more.
Until tomorrow…
Sandra
This blog: https://mywritingnotebook.wordpress.com
My other blog: http://sandramadeira.wordpress.com
My website: www.tipsandluxuries.com (includes the introduction to my book ‘A Gift for Stressed and Busy Mums’)
Twitter: @madeirasandra and @tipsandluxuries
Reference list:
Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus
Cool thanks, this has bothered me for years.
Posted by Sam | October 29, 2013, 9:28 am