facetiously
fa·ce·tious·ly/fəˈsiːʃəsli/adverb
facetiously is an adverb meaning “In a facetious or flippant manner; in a manner that treats serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-A-C-E-T-I-O-U-S-L-Y and has 4 syllables (fa·ce·tious·ly), and it appears about once in every 11 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does facetiously mean?
adverb
- 1
In a facetious or flippant manner; in a manner that treats serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor.
- 2
datedIn a pleasantly humorous or playful fashion.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce facetiously?
- US /fəˈsiːʃəsli/
Facetiously has 4 syllables, split fa·ce·tious·ly in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-facetiously.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of facetiously
- more facetiously comparative
- most facetiously superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is facetiously?
Facetiously appears about once in every 11 million words in written English, the 98,107th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does facetiously come from?
From facetious + -ly.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).