understandably

Understandably means in a way anybody would find reasonable. The reaction makes sense given what happened.

It is a small act of sympathy, since saying somebody was understandably annoyed accepts their annoyance before describing it. It usually sits before an adjective or opens a clause. There is a common variant in understandably enough. The word is a favourite of measured journalism, where it signals that the writer is not criticising. The adjective understandable can also mean simply comprehensible, which is a quite separate sense.