Meaning of fairly in English

fairly

adverb

/ˈfeə.li/ us

/ˈfer.li/

fairly adverb (QUITE)

Add to word list Add to word list

more than average, but less than very:

She's fairly tall.

I'm fairly sure that this is the right address.

We get on fairly well.

I saw her fairly recently.

fairly simple The way the plan works is fairly simple.

fairly easy There is a fairly easy way to answer the question.

fairly common My doctor told me that it is a fairly common surgical procedure.

UK literary

used to emphasize figurative expressions that describe what people or objects are doing:

The answer fairly jumps off the page at you!

The dog fairly flew out of the door to greet him.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Some and quite

See more results »

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Almost

fairly adverb (IN THE RIGHT WAY)

If you do something fairly, you do it in a way that is right and reasonable and treats people equally:

treat someone fairly He claimed that he hadn't been treated fairly by his employers.

Officials will ensure that the election is carried out fairly.

fairly and squarely UK (US squarely)

completely:

She lays the blame for the recession fairly and squarely on the government.

More examplesFewer examples

They have always dealt honestly and fairly with their customers.
Journalists are meant to report fairly and impartially on every story.
There is no pride in winning a game if you know you haven't won fairly.
The defendant was not treated fairly by his employer and should not have lost his job.
All complaints will be dealt with quickly and fairly.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Justice and fairness

See more results »

Grammar

Fairly

We use fairly as an adverb meaning ‘in a way which is right and just’: …

(Definition of fairly from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

fairly | American Dictionary

fairly

adverb

/ˈfeər·li/

fairly adverb (IN THE RIGHT WAY)

Add to word list Add to word list

in a way that is right or reasonable and treats people equally :

It’s the responsibility of a judge to treat both sides fairly.

fairly adverb (TO SOME DEGREE)

[ not gradable ]

more than a little; to some degree:

I know him fairly well.

I saw her fairly recently (= not very long ago).

(Definition of fairly from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of fairly

fairly

Disaggregation of household results by sources of income and expenditure patterns permits a fairly detailed analysis of likely changes in poverty.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The working plans included construction of forest access roads at fairly high labour cost.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Here, language standardization achieved great success in a less developed country with less advanced technical equipment in a fairly short period.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The gender differences are fairly modest, particularly among non-married older people, for whom the interpretation is most straightforward.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

There is a fairly straightforward answer to this question, which is intimately tied to their concept of iteration.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The goal of understanding the limitations of the simulation tool is fairly straightforward.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

This would be fairly straightforward apart from the unresolved issue of what to do with mutually recursive functions.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

First, it gives a fairly general sufficient condition for a family of graphs to satisfy the sharp threshold property.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

To answer this question would require a fairly detailed exploration of the nature of the particular end in question.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Finally, the marginal contribution of each variable to the conditional probability of a fiscal consolidation being undertaken is fairly consistent across all three regressions.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The town would contain about 32,000 people and have a fairly high population density of 70-100 persons per acre.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In that example, the runner strictly prefers realizing some culmination outcome (winning) in certain ways (by competing fairly) rather than others (by cheating).

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Recent use of green oak springs from the realisation that fairly young trees offer a potential resource which can be converted to provide reasonable sections.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

It is good to see the literature, which is fairly scattered, receiving synoptic attention.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

On the other hand, a mix of poor and fairly rich states characterises the central, central-north, and central-west regions.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

See all examples of fairly

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of fairly?