lowly

Other forms of lowly

comparative or superlative

lowlier

comparative or superlative

lowliest

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about lowly

What does lowly mean?

lowly means "low or inferior in station or quality". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in lowly?

lowly has 2 syllables: low-ly. The stress falls on "low". In IPA it is /ˈloʊli/.

What is another word for lowly?

Close synonyms include humble, low, modest, small, junior-grade. 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 lowly a common word?

lowly is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.