lately.
Recently; not long ago; of late; not long since.
Meaning & usage
Recently; not long ago; of late; not long since.
I'd lately returned from Japan.
It's only lately that I've been well enough to get out of bed.
In a late manner; after-the-fact.
Don't try to come lately and change your answer now after you've heard everyone else's response.
Formerly.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English lately, latly, equivalent to late + -ly. Compare Old English lætlīċe (“slowly, tardily”), Middle Low German lātlîk (“careless, slack, sloppy”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.