safely

[ seyf-lee ]

adverb

1. without harm or injury:

   The travel team has arrived safely and on schedule.

2. without risk or danger:

   While we sit safely in our air-conditioned homes complaining, he’s driving across the country working for change.

3. in a way that protects from loss, damage, or harm:

   I wanted that piece of paper safely filed away, just in case I needed to look at it again.

4. without likelihood of being wrong; with reasonable assurance:

   I think we can safely say that the zoo expects some puma kittens later this year!

Other Words From

• qua·si-safe·ly adverb
• su·per·safe·ly adverb
• un·safe·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of safely¹

safe + -ly

Example Sentences

As entomologists, we believe that introducing insects in the classroom, paired with teaching students about insect behavior and environmental roles, will give students a safe place to observe and appreciate these organisms.

From Popular-Science

It’s to focus on all the measures that will keep them — and their families, friends and neighbors — safe outside the classroom.

From Washington Post

I’m there to learn, I’m there to feel safe, and I just didn’t.

From Washington Post

It would be safe to assume that Romney would be one of those two Republicans.

From Washington Post

It’s the cost of keeping a society safe so that soon we can throw away the masks, smile with more than our eyes and hug tight the people who are suffering most of all.

From Washington Post

Had they been properly trained, they could and should have flown themselves safely out of the emergency.

From The Daily Beast

With the midterm elections safely in the rearview mirror, Obama is on legacy patrol.

From The Daily Beast

The Affordable Care Act is safely embedded, with repeal unlikely even with a freshly minted Republican Senate.

From The Daily Beast

Or bold stands that may not preserve our security today or tomorrow, but keep our principles safely intact?

From The Daily Beast

When you are safely out, you give your password to the smuggler who calls it in to the broker to release the funds.

From The Daily Beast

We do not know here what became of her, whether she was lost or arrived safely in Nueva España.

From Project Gutenberg

Immediately Messa went up the stairs, and safely reached a large room where two candles were burning on a buffet.

From Project Gutenberg

Next morning Rome rang with the affair; by noon all three Englishmen were safely over the frontier.

From Project Gutenberg

This is one of the truths which sloth, rapacity and extravagance are slow to learn, yet which they cannot safely ignore.

From Project Gutenberg

And it may safely be said that with its improvement, has arisen also the extension and wide spread practice of music generally.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• carefully
• cautiously
• harmlessly