fair
- fairly
‘fair’
You say that behaviour or a decision is fair when it is reasonable, right, or just.
It wouldn't be fair to disturb the children's education at this stage.
Do you feel they're paying their fair share?
‘fairly’
Don't use ‘fair’ as an adverb, except in the expression play fair. If you want to say that something is done in a reasonable or just way, the word you use is fairly.
We want it to be fairly distributed.
He had not explained things fairly.
Fairly also has a completely different meaning. It means ‘to quite a large degree’.
The information was fairly accurate.
I wrote the first part fairly quickly.
Be careful
Don't use ‘fairly’ in front of a comparative form. Don't say, for example, ‘The train is fairly quicker than the bus’. In conversation and less formal writing, you say ‘The train is a bit quicker than the bus’.
Don't use ‘fairly’ in front of a comparative form. Don't say, for example, ‘The train is fairly quicker than the bus’. In conversation and less formal writing, you say ‘The train is a bit quicker than the bus’.
Golf's a bit more expensive.
I began to understand her a bit better.
Be careful
In more formal writing, you use rather or somewhat.
In more formal writing, you use rather or somewhat.
In short, the problems now look rather worse than they did a year ago.
The results were somewhat lower than expected.
Many other words and expressions can be used to show degree.