especially

1. 1.

   to a distinctly greater extent or degree than is common

   “he was particularly fussy about spelling”

   “a particularly gruesome attack”

   “under peculiarly tragic circumstances”

   “an especially (or specially) cautious approach to the danger”

   Synonymsparticularlypeculiarlyspecially
2. 2.

   in a special manner

   “a specially arranged dinner”

   Synonymsspecially

Questions about especially

What does especially mean?

especially means "to a distinctly greater extent or degree than is common". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in especially?

especially has 3 syllables: e-special-ly. The stress falls on "special". In IPA it is /əˈspɛʃli/.

What is another word for especially?

Close synonyms include particularly, peculiarly, specially, specially. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is especially a common word?

especially is banded "Core" — among the few thousand words that carry most english. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.