preferably

1. 1.

   more readily or willingly

   “clean it well, preferably with warm water”

   “I'd rather be in Philadelphia”

   “I'd sooner die than give up”

   Synonymssoonerrather

Questions about preferably

What does preferably mean?

preferably means "more readily or willingly".

How many syllables are in preferably?

preferably has 4 syllables: pref-e-ra-bly. The stress falls on "pref". In IPA it is /ˈpɹɛfɚəbli/.

What is another word for preferably?

Close synonyms include sooner, rather. 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 preferably a common word?

preferably 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.