surely
Americanadverb
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firmly; unerringly; without missing, slipping, etc.
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undoubtedly, assuredly, or certainly.
The results are surely encouraging.
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(in emphatic utterances that are not necessarily sustained by fact) assuredly.
Surely you are mistaken.
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inevitably or without fail.
Slowly but surely the end approached.
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yes, indeed.
Surely, I'll go with you!
adverb
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without doubt; assuredly
things could surely not have been worse
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without fail; inexorably (esp in the phrase slowly but surely )
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(sentence modifier) am I not right in thinking that?; I am sure that
surely you don't mean it?
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rare in a sure manner
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archaic safely; securely
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(sentence substitute) willingly; of course; yes
Commonly Confused
See sure.
Etymology
Origin of surely
First recorded in 1300–50, surely is from the Middle English word surliche. See sure, -ly
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Shamkhani was killed Saturday, and he surely speaks for those left behind.
He told the court: "The fact that a child was so seriously injured is surely relevant to this case."
From BBC
The blank-slate mentality of Americans in Hawthorne’s day is surely one reason.
One reason, surely, is that Stanton sought to take suffragism to a place it did not want to go.
"There's a problem here – the fuel problem – so surely the people at the top on both sides have to sit down, figure it out," he says bluntly.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
