yours truly

8 5.5

A polite closing you write before your name at the end of a letter or email

idiom

Formal

: atentamente

Yours truly, Dr. Eric A. Price.

Examples

Yours truly, Jake.

Cupids on Beacon Street (2021)
Yours truly, Waldo Diefendorfer.

The Brothers Garcia: Mysteries of the Maya (2003)
"Yours truly, Booker Washington Simms."

Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)
Thank you, yours truly, Timothy Gilmore.

Blog text (25)
Yours truly, Benjamin Battle.

Big Brown Eyes (1936)
Yours truly, Napoleon Dynamite.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Yours truly, Simone."

S1m0ne (2002)
Sincerely yours, yours truly, Sam.
Warm regards, yours truly, Jane Doe.
Best wishes, yours truly, the project manager.

Synonyms

sincerely yours

vsyours truly

Formal

3 2.1

A polite way to end a formal letter when you know the person's name

is used in formal or semi formal closings not only when name is known

warm regards

vsyours truly

1 2.3

A polite, friendly way to end a letter or email

is more formal or neutral rather than offering friendly good wishes

yours

vsyours truly

Formal

1.0

It is a friendly word written at the end of a letter before the sender's name

is a more formal or semi formal closing rather than affectionate

Surface Forms

yours truly main

Morphology

yours + truly

The words 'yours' (possession/closing marker) and 'truly' (sincerity) transparently evoke a meaning related to sincere regard, so a learner who knows both words can guess a close sense. However, the use of this specific word order as a conventional letter-closing formula is a pragmatic convention not fully predictable from the parts and varies across languages, so prior exposure is usually needed.

Etymology

Yours truly began as a short way to say 'I am truly yours', where yours shows the writer's respect and truly means honestly. That's why people use Yours truly as a polite ending in letters and emails.