ruly

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 4, 2007 is: ruly • \ROO-lee\ • adjective : obedient, orderly Examples: Concert organizers worried that rambunctious fans might get out of hand, but the crowd was surprisingly ruly. Did you know? You're probably familiar with "unruly," meaning "not readily controlled or disciplined." Have you ever wondered, "Is there a 'ruly' too?" If so, did it seem to you that such a word should exist? A little over 150 years ago, someone apparently followed that same thought process, creating "ruly" by dropping the prefix from "unruly." Whoever did so probably thought the coinage was a new one, but that's not quite the case. There had once been another "ruly" with much the same meaning as the modern term, but it had been out of use for over 200 years. Ultimately, "ruly" and "unruly" come from "reuly," a Middle English word meaning "disciplined." "Reuly" in turn comes from Middle English "reule," a predecessor of "rule." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.