adversely
Americanadverb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of adversely
Explanation
When something affects you adversely, it's harmful or negative. Holding a cinder block will adversely affect your running speed. When you talk about things that are acting adversely, they are harming something or holding it back in some way. Not getting enough sleep will adversely affect your performance in school. Rain will adversely affect an outdoor wedding. Anything that's making things worse instead of better is adversely influencing the situation. Adversely means something close to badly or harmfully. So when you see this word, you know something is going wrong.
Vocabulary lists containing adversely
Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ly
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167 Vocabulary words from the Supreme Court's DOMA Decision
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Vocabulary from the Seventh Democratic Debate, March 6, 2016
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The United Farm Workers, along with more than a dozen farmworkers, filed a federal lawsuit in California challenging a new Labor Department rule they argue will “undercut and adversely affect” wages paid to U.S. workers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
McCoubrey said he was not shocked to discover that people living in the most deprived areas were more adversely affected by pain than others.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026
People who depend on fixed-rate pensions or flat-rate annuities are the most adversely affected, because those do not incorporate inflation into their payments.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
People who had the skills and aptitudes to adapt to those forces did very well, and people who were affected more adversely did not.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
“That’s what I said! But Dr. Culligan said I had to ‘react adversely to the stimuli’ before she could prescribe me anything.”
From "Liar, Liar" by Gary Paulsen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
