Skip to content

St Nicholas CE Primary Academy

  • Group 1 Mrs MacRae's Spelling Group (Year 2 only)

    Adding the suffix -ly

    This week we are learning how to add the suffix -ly to root words! 

    Some examples are ..

    nearly

    slowly

    quickly 

    quietly

    Did you know it is very easy to make an adverb by adding the suffix -ly to an adjective?

    near + ly  = nearly       slow + ly  = slowly    

    quick + ly  = quickly   quiet + ly  = quietly

    We don’t usually have to swap, double or drop any letters when we add the suffix -ly

    root word

    keep root word the same and add -ly

    slow

    slowly

    quiet

    quietly

    glad

    gladly

    sad

    sadly

    Weird Word Warning for you.

    Here it is...

    When an adjective ends in y, we have to swap the y for an i before adding -ly. Like this:

                                                   happy        happily      

                                                   speedy       speedily   

                                                   easy       easily