routinely
Americanadverb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of routinely
Explanation
When you do something routinely, you do it often and regularly. Many people routinely brush their teeth before they go to bed and again when they wake up in the morning. Something that's become a habit or an often repeated series of actions is done routinely. Your actual daily routine is one example of this — you might routinely eat cereal for breakfast, or routinely feed your cat at 5:00, for example. You can also say that a movie critic who always seems to find some fault with a film routinely trashes all your favorite movies. The French root is routine, "usual course of action," from route, "way or path."
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.
It resonates in part because pregnant women are routinely handed absolutes with little explanation and expected to comply, so permission to have a little leeway is a welcome relief.
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2026
These proportions were higher than for other professions including nuclear technologists, who are routinely exposed to radiation from non-cosmic sources yet placed 12th on the list, the authors said.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
UV radiation is deadly enough to many microorganisms that hospitals routinely use it for sterilization.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 25, 2026
In California, Prince Harry could be treated as a faraway problem and was largely ignored by palace courtiers, who routinely refused to comment on the verbal grenades launched by the man fifth-in-line for the throne.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
In fact, farmers today treat several of these crops as weeds—they routinely blast little barley with herbicides.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
