monthly

Pluralmonthlies

1. 1
   adjective

   Occurring or appearing once in each month.

   The committee publishes a monthly report on its spending.

   Employees receive a monthly salary deposited into their accounts.

   Note

   An old adjective, not an adverb in disguise. It comes from Old English mōnaþlīċ and is built with the -ly that makes adjectives. It sits before its noun, as in a monthly bath or monthly or yearly subscriptions, and it does not compare: nothing is more monthly than anything else. The adverb shares the spelling but reached English by a separate Middle English route.

2. 2
   adverb

   Once in each month, or at intervals of about a month.

   Interest is calculated monthly and added to the balance.

   The board reviews its budget monthly.

   Note

   Here -ly does its adverb-making work. The word comes from Middle English monethly and has cognates across Germanic: Dutch maandelijks, German monatlich and Swedish månatligen. It usually closes the clause, after the verb it times (rent must be paid monthly), and it does not compare. Because it is spelled like the adjective, position tells them apart: before a noun it is the adjective, and after a verb it is the adverb.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A magazine or journal that appears once a month.

   The literary monthly featured a long interview with the novelist.

   He wrote columns for several monthlies during the 1990s.

4. 4
   nouneuphemisticcountable

   A familiar, euphemistic term for menstruation.

   Her monthly was late that week, which worried her a little.

   She always kept painkillers handy for her monthlies.

   Similarperiod

   Note

   A euphemism that names the cycle by its timing rather than its nature. It nearly always takes a possessive, as in her monthly or having her monthly, the way Monica Dixon's Through Closed Eyes (2008) uses it. It also appears as the plural monthlies. It belongs to familiar talk, and in medical or formal writing, menstruation or period is the plainer choice.

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