writerly
adjective
writerly is an adjective meaning “Characteristic of a writer; using well-chosen words or well-crafted sentences” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled W-R-I-T-E-R-L-Y, and it appears about once in every 15 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does writerly mean?
adjective
- 1
Characteristic of a writer; using well-chosen words or well-crafted sentences.
The article was writerly and professional.
- 2
of or pertaining to a writer
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of writerly
- more writerly comparative
- most writerly superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is writerly?
Writerly appears about once in every 15 million words in written English, the 118,441st 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).
Writerly in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense characteristic of a writer:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | autoral |
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 writerly come from?
From writer + -ly.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).