partly

From part + -ly.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑɹtli/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑːtli/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)tli

partly (not comparable)

1. In part, or to some degree, but not completely.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:partially

   Antonyms: see Thesaurus:completely

   They had partly finished the house, so they could move in before winter.

   The car was partly visible in the garage.

   • 2011 October 1, Phil Dawkes, “Sunderland 2-2 West Brom”, in BBC Sport‎^[1], archived from the original on 26 December 2024:

     Five minutes into the game the Black Cats were facing a mountain, partly because of West Brom's newly-found ruthlessness in front of goal but also as a result of the home side's defensive generosity.

   • 2012, Christoper Zara, Tortured Artists: From Picasso and Monroe to Warhol and Winehouse, the Twisted Secrets of the World's Most Creative Minds, part 1, chapter 1, 27:

     Clara's cultural cache soon gave way to Betty Boop, the iconic cartoon flapper created partly in her image by animator Grim Natwick.

   • 2013 June 21, Oliver Burkeman, “The tao of tech”, in The Guardian Weekly‎^[2], volume 189, number 2, archived from the original on 11 April 2021, page 48:

     The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […] and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention. Partly, this is a result of how online advertising has traditionally worked: advertisers pay for clicks, and a click is a click, however it's obtained.

   • 2026 March 16, Michael Tomasky, “A Big Announcement Is Coming This Week. Americans Should Be Nervous.”, in The New Republic‎^[3], archived from the original on 16 March 2026:

     Will the great and mighty United States of America, the oldest democracy in the world, celebrating its 250th birthday this July, be demoted to “partly free”? I don’t know. But the mere fact that we even have to ask this question is chilling.

• partially

• “partly”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “partly”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “partly”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.

• paltry, raptly