shortly
/ˈʃɔɹtli/adverb
shortly is spelled S-H-O-R-T-L-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is shorly: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 25 of all searches for the word. Shortly is an adverb meaning “In a short or brief time or manner; quickly”.
How many letters and syllables are in shortly?
| Letters | 7: S-H-O-R-T-L-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 30 times per million words; the 3,161st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, shorly, about 20 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell shortly?
Shortly is spelled S-H-O-R-T-L-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 25 of the searches for shortly in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is shortly?
Shortly appears 30 times per million words in written English, the 3,161st 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).
How do you pronounce shortly?
- US /ˈʃɔɹtli/
Shortly has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-shortly.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with shortly?
2 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as shortly from its last stressed vowel (/ɔɹtli/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
What does shortly mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adverb
- 1
In a short or brief time or manner; quickly.
- 2
In or after a short time; soon.
The past perfect progressive is used for actions and situations which had continued up to a past moment or shortly before it.
- 3
In few words.
Ideas are generally expressed more shortly in verse than in prose
- 4
In an irritable ("short") manner.
"Stop interrupting me, will ya?" she said shortly.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Shortly in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | rapidement , brièvement |
| Portuguese | rapidamente , concisamente , brevemente, em breve |
| Spanish | pronto, en breve |
| German | bald |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does shortly come from?
From Middle English schortly, schortliche, from Old English sċortlīċe (“shortly; before long; soon”), equivalent to short + -ly.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).