sadly

«sadly» in Mova's school dictionary: In a sad way — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 4 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adverb (sadly; more sadly, most sadly)

meaning for a pupil

1) In a sad way. tree →

2) Unfortunately; it is sad that... (at the start of a sentence). tree →

3) Very much, badly: sadly mistaken. tree →

sense in the lessons

In stories it shows how someone speaks or acts. As a sentence opener it gives bad news gently. In euphemisms: «sadly, Grandpa passed away». Phrases: sadly missed, sadly mistaken.

examples

• The dog looked sadly at the empty bowl. tree →
• Sadly, the match was cancelled because of rain. tree →
• «I have to go home,» she said sadly. tree →
• Sadly, our hamster died last week. tree →
• You are sadly mistaken if you think that is easy. tree →
• He will be sadly missed by everyone. tree →
• The King shook his head sadly. tree →

note

Formed from sad + -ly. «Sadly, ...» at the start of a sentence is about the speaker's feeling about the news, not about how something was done.

In the corpora

• Sadly, more than a quarter of parrot kinds are threatened, mainly by forest loss and by people catching them as pets.
• They jump about like mad things while explaining, then suddenly sit down sadly and quietly.
• Toad thinks a long time and then says sadly: «You have conquered, my friends...
• Some fronted adverbials show the speaker's opinion, like Frankly, Luckily and Sadly.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «sadly» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.