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say it: POOR-lee
poorly is an adjective and adverb meaning "somewhat ill or prone to illness". It is pronounced /ˈpuɹli/ — POOR-lee. It carries 2 recorded senses.
somewhat ill or prone to illness
“my poor ailing grandmother”
“feeling a bit indisposed today”
“you look a little peaked”
“feeling poorly”
“a sickly child”
“is unwell and can't come to work”
(`ill' is often used as a combining form) in a poor or improper or unsatisfactory manner; not well
“he was ill prepared”
“it ill befits a man to betray old friends”
“the car runs badly”
“he performed badly on the exam”
“the team played poorly”
“ill-fitting clothes”
“an ill-conceived plan”
combining form
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.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for poorly come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.