What does funnily mean?
'Funnily' is an adverb formed from 'funny', meaning in a humorous or amusing way — as when someone tells a story funnily or behaves funnily to entertain others. In practice, however, the word survives mainly through its celebrated fixed phrase 'funnily enough', which introduces a statement that is strange, unexpected, or coincidental rather than comic: 'Funnily enough, we went to the same school without ever meeting.' This dual life gives the word an unusual character, serving both as a genuine descriptor of comedic manner and as a rhetorical flourish for irony. It is more at home in British English than American, though the coincidence-phrase has spread widely across the English-speaking world. Derived ultimately from 'fun', a word with roots in older notions of foolishness and trickery, 'funnily' carries the playful lineage of its parent term, making it a small but distinctive piece of English vocabulary.
adverbIn a funny or amusing way; humorously. It also appears in the fixed phrase 'funnily enough', used to introduce a strange or surprising coincidence.
- In a humorous or amusing manner.
- As part of 'funnily enough', marking a strange or coincidental fact.
"She told the story funnily enough to make the whole room laugh."
"He imitated the professor's accent so funnily that the lecture dissolved into laughter."
"Funnily enough, I was thinking about her just minutes before she called."
Ask most people how to spell it and they hesitate — 'funnily' is one of those adverbs that looks slightly wrong even when it's right, yet 'funnily enough' is one of English's favorite ways to say 'what a coincidence'.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of funnily
The word traces back through 'funny' to 'fun', which appeared in English in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, likely derived from 'fon', an older term meaning a fool or someone infatuated. As 'fun' evolved from signifying trickery and cheating into signifying amusement, the adjective 'funny' emerged, and the adverbial form 'funnily' followed as a regular derivation. Its closest relatives are therefore other descendants of this playful lineage, including 'fond', which preserves the older 'fon' root in a sense of affection rather than folly.
Related word forms
How funnily is actually used
'Funnily' is more common in British English than American English, where writers often prefer 'in a funny way' or use the phrase 'funny enough' or 'funnily enough' regardless. The adverbial use to mean 'humorously' is relatively rare outside of describing speech or storytelling; by far its most frequent appearance in modern usage is the set phrase 'funnily enough', which functions less as a description of humor than as an aside introducing an ironic coincidence.
Easily confused with funnily
'Funny' is the adjective describing something that causes laughter, while 'funnily' is the adverb describing the manner in which something is done or said.