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Origin and history of evidently

evidently(adv.)

"clearly, obviously, plainly, in a manner to be seen and understood, certainly," late 14c., from evident + -ly (2).

also from late 14c.

Entries linking to evidently

evident(adj.)

"plainly seen or perceived, manifest, obvious," late 14c., from Old French evident and directly from Latin evidentem (nominative evidens) "perceptible, clear, obvious, apparent" from ex "out, out of, fully" (see ex-) + videntem (nominative videns), present participle of videre "to see" (from PIE root *weid- "to see").

-ly(2)

common adverbial suffix, forming, from adjectives, adverbs signifying "in a manner denoted by" the adjective; Middle English -li, from Old English -lice, from Proto-Germanic *-liko- (source also of Old Frisian -like, Old Saxon -liko, Dutch -lijk, Old High German -licho, German -lich, Old Norse -liga, Gothic -leiko). See -ly (1). It is cognate with lich, and identical with like (adj.).

Weekley notes as "curious" that Germanic uses a word essentially meaning "body" for the adverbial formation, while Romanic uses one meaning "mind" (as in French constamment from Latin constanti mente). The modern English form emerged in late Middle English, probably from influence of Old Norse -liga.

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    plain
    c. 1300, "flat, smooth," from Old French plain "flat, smooth, even" (12c.), from Latin planus "flat, even, level" (from PIE root *pele- (2) "flat; to spread"). Sense of "explicit, clear, evident" is from late 14c.; that of "free from obstruction" is mid-14c.; meaning "simple, sin
    planxty
    in Irish music, "harp tune of a sportive and animated character" [OED], 1790, of unknown origin, evidently not a native Irish...
    self-evident
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    Ciceronian
    The name evidently is related to cicer "chickpea," and may have referred to a facial wart prominent on some ancestor of the...
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    In the Islamic lunar calendar, it passes through all seasons in a cycle of about 33 years, but evidently originally it was...
    marasmus
    Maras (n.), evidently in the same sense, is attested from mid-15c. Related: Marasmic....
    wild goose chase
    ignorance of the direction it will take," hence "a foolish enterprise," 1592, first attested in "Romeo and Juliet," where it evidently...
    incarceration
    "fact of being imprisoned," 1530s, from Medieval Latin incarcerationem (nominative incarceratio), noun of action from past-participle stem of incarcerare "to imprison," from in- "in" (from PIE root *en "in") + carcer "prison, an enclosed space," from Proto-Italic *kar-kr(o)-, whi
    John Doe
    fictitious plaintiff in a legal action, attested from 1768 (in Blackstone). The fictitious defendant was Richard Roe. If female, Jane Doe, Jane Roe. Replaced earlier John-a-nokes (1530s) or Jack Nokes, who usually was paired with John-a-stiles or Tom Stiles. Also used of plaintif
    calendar
    c. 1200, calender, "the year as divided systematically into days and months;" mid-14c. as "table showing divisions of the year;" from Old French calendier "list, register," from Latin calendarium "account book," from calendae/kalendae "the calends" the first day of the Roman mont

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