Phonetically

Part of speech: adverb

Pronunciation: /fəˈnɛtɪkli/

Definitions

1. In a manner explicitly connected to the sounds produced in speech
2. Concerning or involving the representation of words by their sounds rather than their spelling
3. Expressed or considered in terms of the actual sounds that form spoken language

Etymology: "Phonetically" is an adverb built from "phonetic" plus the adverbial suffix "-ally," so its history is really the history of the adjective it grows from. "Phonetic" traces back to Ancient Greek "phōnē," meaning voice or sound, which also gave English words like "telephone" and "symphony." The Greeks formed "phōnētikos" from it, and the Latin "phōnēticus" passed that form into the scholarly vocabulary of Europe, where it describes things relating to speech sounds. The suffix does most of the grammatical work. English "-ally" comes from Old English "-līce," a common way of turning an adjective into an adverb, so "phonetically" means "in a phonetic manner," that is, by means of spoken sounds. The word is a modern scientific formation, assembled from classical parts rather than inherited from the Greeks or Romans, who had no such term for the study of speech sounds.

Synonyms: pronunciation-wise, articulately