Happily Meaning
/ˈhæp.ɪ.li/Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
advIn a happy or cheerful manner; with happiness.
advBy good chance; fortunately, successfully.
Sentence Examples
Everybody in the picture is smiling happily.
No matter how rich one may be, one cannot live happily without health.
Children playing happily on the beach
CEFR Practice Quiz
The children played ____ in the park all afternoon.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The children played ____ in the park all afternoon, enjoying the warm and sunny weather.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English happily, happyly, happyliche, happylyche, equivalent to happy + -ly.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"And thus I have given the first part of a life of fortune and adventure, a life of Providence's chequer-work, and of a variety which the world will seldom be able to shew the like of: beginning foolishly, but closing much more happily than any part of it ever gave me leave so much as to hope for."
— 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 311:
"Train operating companies get plenty of column inches in the tabloids, usually for negative reasons. Happily, Southeastern is worthy of praise for having made The Sun for something positive."
— 2024 February 21, Nick Brodrick, “Inclusion and development for all”, in RAIL, number 1003, page 62:
"Watt wore, on his feet, a boot, brown in colour, and a shoe, happily of a brownish colour also."
— 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC:
"And who knoweth whether a thousand yeares hence a third opinion will rise, which happily shall overthrow these two precedents?"
— 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
Explore More A2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The children played ____ in the park all afternoon.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The children played ____ in the park all afternoon, enjoying the warm and sunny weather.