fair - fairly

◊ 'fair'

You say that behaviour or a decision is fair when it is reasonable, right, or just.

It wouldn't be fair to disturb the children's education at this stage.

Be fair, darling. It's not their fault.

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◊ 'fairly'

You do not use fair as an adverb, except in the expression `play fair'. If you want to say that something is done in a reasonable or just way, the word you use is fairly.

We want it to be fairly distributed.

He had not put the defence case fairly to the jury.

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Fairly also means `to quite a large degree'.

The information was fairly accurate.

I wrote the first part fairly quickly.

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◊ WARNING

You do not use fairly in front of a comparative form. You do not say, for example, `The train is fairly quicker than the bus'. In conversation, you say `The train is a bit quicker than the bus'.

Golf's a bit more expensive.

I began to understand her a bit better.

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In writing, you use rather or somewhat.

Edberg is a rather better grass-court player than Kratzmann.

This appearance came somewhat earlier than originally planned.

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Many other words and expressions can be used to indicate degree. For graded lists, see section on degree in entry at ↑ Adverbials and section on submodifiers in entry at ↑ Adverbs.

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