Note 91 – Lengthy and lengthily

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

http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/lengthily.htm