suddenly
adverb
Form of sudden , adverb of sudden.
Simple meaning
Quickly and without warning.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
suhduhnleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsʌdənli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adverb
Happening quickly and with little or no warning; in a sudden manner.
Happening unexpectedly
Quickly and without warning
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Happening quickly and with little or no warning; in a sudden manner.
Used this way, suddenly is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It comes across as direct, sometimes bluntly so.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Sudden and forceful
- Usage feel
- Blunt and forceful
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use suddenly
- “Suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her side.”adverb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Happening without warning or in a short space of time.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.