happily
Americanadverb
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in a happy manner; with pleasure.
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by good fortune; providentially; luckily.
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felicitously; appropriately; aptly.
a happily turned phrase.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of happily
A Middle English word dating back to 1300–50; see origin at happy, -ly
Explanation
Do something happily and you'll be cheerful and lighthearted. It can lift your spirits just to hear your friend whistling happily as she walks down the sidewalk with a smile on her face. If you're happy to do something, you'll do it happily. Most of us will happily finish that last piece of cake or happily cuddle a tiny puppy. A second meaning of this adverb is "fortunately," so you could say, "Happily, I shut the front door before your cat got out!" This definition dates from the late 14th century — earlier, people used happily to mean "accidentally." And of course the very happiest stories end with "they lived happily ever after."
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.
They weren’t as old as I was when I gained a stepfather, but happily well beyond a plausible stepmother phase.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2026
But the series still ends, happily, with the title “To be continued.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
Related: My grandpa retired happily at 70 with $750K after working as a missionary.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 2, 2026
His tastes still range happily from Black Thought, the lead rapper of American hip-hop group The Roots, to his favourite filmmaker, the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026
Cat crunched her lemonade ice happily and said mental thank-yous—to Harriet for not blabbing, to Chicken for not being any quicker, to the driver of the truck.
From "Caterpillar Summer" by Gillian McDunn
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.
