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verily

UK/ˈvɛɹ.əl.i/US/ˈvɛɹ.əl.i/
adverbC2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,246 of 15,258leans spoken

Verily means truly, in old or biblical use. Verily I say unto you, verily it was so, verily and indeed.

It belongs to the King James Bible above all, and anybody using it now is either quoting or joking. It is built on very in its older sense of true, which survives in the very man and in verity, meaning truth.

Definitions of verily

  1. 1adverbverilyTruly, in old or biblical use.C2

    “In the King James Bible, Jesus often begins a teaching with "Verily I say unto you."”

verily is a manner.

Where it comes from

Middle English verraily, from verray, true, from Latin verus. Very is the same word.

  1. Middle English

    verraily

  2. English, today

    verily

Built from

  • verray · Middle English — true, very

From Middle English verraily, from verray (“true, very”) + -ly. More at very, -ly.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

verily in the wild

  • Common English translations of the word amen include "verily", "truly", "it is true", and "let it be so".

    Amen

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.