The Adverb of Significant: Significantly
The adverb of significant is significantly.
How significantly is formed
Add -ly with no change: significant + ly = significantly.
All -ant and -ent adjectives behave this way: reluctant → reluctantly, fluent → fluently, obedient → obediently.
Significantly in a sentence
| Costs rose significantly last quarter. | By a large amount. |
| The two groups differed significantly. | In a research paper this has a technical meaning – see below. |
| He paused significantly before answering. | Meaningfully – a rarer sense, closer to the root. |
Where it is actually used
Knowing the form is one thing; knowing the company a word keeps is what makes it sound natural. These are the patterns significantly appears in most often.
| significantly higher / lower / different | Comparisons, especially in research and reporting. |
| significantly improved / reduced / increased | Change over time. |
| paused / looked significantly | The older sense: in a way that carries meaning. |
Significantly or something else?
Several adverbs sit close to significantly, and the difference is usually meaning rather than formality.
| considerably | Purely about size, with no statistical overtone. The safer word outside research. |
| notably | About being worth remarking on, not about magnitude. |
| materially | A legal and financial term meaning enough to affect a decision. |
The mistake to watch for
| Incorrect | Correct |
| The results were significantly better, though the difference was not statistically significant. | The results were somewhat better, though the difference was not statistically significant. |
In scientific and medical writing, significantly is read as a claim about statistics. Using it loosely in the same document contradicts the statistics you are reporting.
The word has two audiences. To a general reader, significantly higher means noticeably higher. To a reader with a statistics background it means the difference passed a significance test. If you are writing anything that might be read as research, use considerably or substantially unless you mean the technical sense.
Related forms
Pronunciation: sig-NIF-i-kant-lee, five syllables, stress on the second.
| Adjective | significant |
| Adverb | significantly |
| Noun | significance |
| Verb | signify |
Practice
Fill the gap, then check yourself.
- Waiting times fell ___ after the change.
- The price is ___ higher than last year.
- She ___ omitted his name from the list.
Answers: 1. significantly / considerably 2. considerably (no statistics involved) 3. significantly (meaningfully)
Frequently asked
What does statistically significant actually mean?
That a result is unlikely to have arisen by chance alone, under a stated threshold. It is not a claim that the effect is large or important – a tiny effect can be statistically significant in a big enough sample.
