gradually

English

Etymology

From gradual +‎ -ly.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈɡɹæd͡ʒuəli/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Hyphenation: grad‧u‧al‧ly

Adverb

gradually (comparative more gradually, superlative most gradually)

  1. In a gradual manner; making slow progress; slowly.
    • 2014 September 29, Douglas Quenqua, “Toolmaking May Have Risen Independently”, in The New York Times‎[1], archived from the original on 1 October 2014:
      The most likely conclusion, the researchers say, is that the Levallois method was not taken to Eurasia by African migrants, but evolved there gradually and independently.
    • 2021 January 5, Peter Foster, “Peter Foster: Sustainable Newspeak by 2050”, in Financial Post‎[2]:
      The instrument of this dumbing down in Nineteen Eighty-Four was Newspeak, the official language of the English Socialist Party (Ingsoc). Newspeak was a sort of Totalitarian Esperanto that sought gradually to diminish the range of what was thinkable by eliminating, contracting and manufacturing words.
  2. (obsolete) by degrees
    • 1682, Nehemiah Grew, The Anatomy of Plants. […], [London]: […] W. Rawlins, for the author, published 1682, →OCLC:
      Horns, upon the due accession of Moisture, doth gradually become Soft.

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