richly

C2+ Topic:Describing Qualities

US /ˈrɪtʃli/ UK /ˈrɪtʃli/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

adv
in a costly, abundant, or fully deserved manner

The chapel was richly decorated with gold leaf and frescoes.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 adv · in a costly, abundant, or... abundantly lavishly amply sumptuously fully deservedly

Opposites

sparsely meagerly poorly

Word family

Related forms rich riches richness enrich

Etymology

From Old English rīclīce ('powerfully, mightily'), from rīce ('powerful, wealthy') + -līce ('-ly'), from Proto-Germanic *rīkijaz.

rīclīce Old English *rīkijaz Proto-Germanic

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Describing Qualities Word Formation & Derivatives

External links

# richly

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** adv
**IPA (US):** /ˈrɪtʃli/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈrɪtʃli/

## Meanings
1. in a costly, abundant, or fully deserved manner

## Examples
- The chapel was richly decorated with gold leaf and frescoes.

## Synonyms
- abundantly
- lavishly
- amply
- sumptuously
- fully
- deservedly

## Antonyms
- sparsely
- meagerly
- poorly

## Related Forms
- rich
- riches
- richness
- enrich

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: rīclīce
- Root: *rīkijaz

## Etymology
From Old English rīclīce ('powerfully, mightily'), from rīce ('powerful, wealthy') + -līce ('-ly'), from Proto-Germanic *rīkijaz.

## AI Etymology
Richly comes from Old English rīclīce ('powerfully, mightily'), from rīce ('powerful, wealthy') + -līce ('-ly'), from Proto-Germanic *rīkijaz. The historical chain includes Old English rīclīce and Proto-Germanic *rīkijaz. Older glosses in the chain include "powerfully, mightily", "powerful, wealthy", and "-ly", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, richly is best read as compound, suffixal formation, and borrowing, yielding an English adverb shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as an adverb, with the sense "in a costly, abundant, or fully deserved manner". related forms include rich, riches, richness, and enrich. The result is an English adverb whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.

## Topics
- Describing Qualities
- Word Formation & Derivatives

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