worthly
"worthly" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“worthly” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as an adjective - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Having great worth or value; valuable; important; dignified; stately; excellent; worthy; deserving (of).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | worthly |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “worthly” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for worthly is 7 letters long, classified as an adjective. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Having great worth or value; valuable; important; dignified; stately; excellent; worthy; deserving (of).".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for worthly, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English worthely, wurthlich, from Old English weorþlīċ (“important, valuable, splendid, worthy, estimable, honorable, distinguished, exalted, fit, becoming”), from Proto-Germanic *werþalīkaz (“worthy”), equivalent to worth + -ly. Cognate with Ol… The correct English form is worthly, spelled W-O-R-T-H-L-Y.
Definition
- 1Having great worth or value; valuable; important; dignified; stately; excellent; worthy; deserving (of).
Etymology
From Middle English worthely, wurthlich, from Old English weorþlīċ (“important, valuable, splendid, worthy, estimable, honorable, distinguished, exalted, fit, becoming”), from Proto-Germanic *werþalīkaz (“worthy”), equivalent to worth + -ly. Cognate with Old Frisian werdelik, Old Saxon werthlīk, Old High German werdlīh.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “worthly”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-O-R-T-H-L-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.