bittersweetly
1
5.0
- adverb
- /ˌbɪtərˈswitli/
- She handed in her resignation bittersweetly, excited for new opportunities but sad to leave her friends.
Examples
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As he watched his childhood home being sold, he smiled bittersweetly at the memories it held.
-
And the whole place is still, so still that the stillness makes you open your eyes and smile bittersweetly and deliver the last chorus with a biting electricity that raises goosebumps.
Fiction book (1998) -
He looked bittersweetly at the graduation photo, proud of his achievements yet missing the friends who had moved away.
Antonyms
How Bittersweet
Surface Forms
Morphology
bittersweetly = bittersweet (transparent) = bitter + sweet + ly
The adverb is formed by adding the productive suffix '-ly' to the adjective 'bittersweet', which itself transparently combines 'bitter' + 'sweet' to mean mixed feelings.
Etymology
Bittersweetly is built from the two taste words bitter and sweet, plus the ending -ly which means 'in a ... way'. Think of tasting something that is both bitter and sweet at once, and you get a clear image to remember the word. So bittersweetly means feeling both 'happy' and 'sad' at the same time.