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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

ruly.

Pitiable; miserable.

4 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈɹuːli/
  1. Pitiable; miserable.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English rewly, ruly, rewely, reweliche, from Old English hrēowlīċ (“grievous, pitiful, sad, wretched, cruel”), equivalent to rue + -ly.

adv/ˈɹuːli/
  1. Pitiably; miserably.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English rewly, reoly, reowliche, from Old English hrēowlīċe (“cruelly”), equivalent to rue + -ly.

adj/ˈɹuːli/
  1. Neat and orderly.

    rare
Where this word comes from

Back-formation from unruly, or perhaps a continuation of Middle English rewly, ruly, reuli (“subject to a religious rule, regular”), equivalent to rule + -ly, rule + -y; or perhaps from Old French rulé, reulé, rieulé (“ruled”), past participle of rieuler (“to rule”). More at rule.

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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.