The Adverb of Sufficient: Sufficiently
The adverb of sufficient is sufficiently.
How sufficiently is formed
Add -ly with no change: sufficient + ly = sufficiently.
All -ent and -ant adjectives behave this way: fluent → fluently, significant → significantly, obedient → obediently.
Sufficiently in a sentence
| The evidence is not sufficiently clear. | Before an adjective, the commonest pattern. |
| The room was sufficiently large for forty people. | Enough for a stated purpose. |
| He had not prepared sufficiently. | After the verb. |
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 sufficiently appears in most often.
| sufficiently clear / large / advanced | Before an adjective. Most uses fall here. |
| not sufficiently | A formal way of saying not enough. |
| sufficiently to justify / warrant | Legal and administrative writing. |
Sufficiently or something else?
Several adverbs sit close to sufficiently, and the difference is usually meaning rather than formality.
| enough | The everyday word, and it follows the adjective instead of preceding it. |
| adequately | About meeting a required standard rather than reaching a quantity. |
| amply | More than enough, with room to spare. |
The mistake to watch for
| Incorrect | Correct |
| The room was enough large. | The room was large enough. |
Sufficiently goes before the adjective; enough goes after it. This is one of the few places in English where two words with the same meaning sit on opposite sides of the word they modify.
Register matters more than meaning here. Sufficiently large and large enough say the same thing, but the first belongs to reports and regulations and the second to ordinary speech. In most writing enough is the better choice; reserve sufficiently for contexts that are formal anyway.
Related forms
Pronunciation: suf-FISH-ent-lee, four syllables, stress on the second.
| Adjective | sufficient |
| Adverb | sufficiently |
| Noun | sufficiency |
| Everyday equivalent | enough (different word order) |
Practice
Fill the gap, then check yourself.
- The bridge is not ___ strong for heavy vehicles.
- Is the rope long ___?
- The team was ___ staffed for the workload.
Answers: 1. sufficiently 2. enough 3. adequately / sufficiently
Frequently asked
Can I write sufficient enough?
No – it says the same thing twice. Choose one: sufficient or enough.
