intuitively

intuitively

English

Etymology

    From intuitive + -ly.

    Pronunciation

    • Audio (Mid-Atlantic US):(file)

    Adverb

    intuitively (comparative more intuitively, superlative most intuitively)

    1. By intuition; with skill or accuracy, but without special training or planning; instinctively.
      Antonym: unintuitively
      Though he had never been to art school, he intuitively painted vivid landscapes.
      • 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Confidence”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. [], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, [], →OCLC, page 100:
        "I will," said Constance, who felt intuitively that Lady Marchmont spoke the truth: "I thought that there was something very peculiar in your manner at Mrs. Howard's fête; and Lady Dudley——"
      • 1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational Grammar, Cambridge: University Press, →ISBN, page 4:
        Thus, native speakers have an intuitive knowledge of the syntactic relations between the words in sentences in their language; in other words, they intuitively know how words are combined together to form Phrases, and Phrases are combined together to form sentences. [...]

    Translations