noisily

noisily — adverb

1. producing loud, often bothersome sounds that people nearby find hard to ignore.

1.adverbB1
Definition

producing loud, often bothersome sounds that people nearby find hard to ignore.

Example

Diego and his friends ran noisily down the wooden stairs of the old school.

noisily after verb (most common position)

Aiko's old refrigerator hummed noisily throughout the warm summer evening.

collocation: appliance + hum noisily

Common collocations
  • eat noisily
  • breathe noisily
  • run noisily
  • hum noisily
  • chew noisily
  • clatter noisily
  • rattle noisily
Synonyms
  • loudly

    neutral; describes high volume but not necessarily unpleasant or disturbing

  • raucously

    describes loud, harsh, disorderly sounds; more specific to human groups or crowds

  • vociferously

    formal; used for loud, forceful speech, complaints, or protests

Antonyms
  • quietly

    making little or no sound; opposite of noisily

  • silently

    making no sound at all; stronger than quietly

Grammar Patterns

verb + noisily

noisily + verb

Usage Note

Noisily carries a negative or mildly annoying tone — it suggests the sound is unwanted or bothersome to hearers. This distinguishes it from loudly, which simply describes high volume without judgment. Noisily can appear either before or after the main verb; before-verb placement adds slight emphasis to the manner of the action.

Common Mistakes

The room was noisily.
The children in the room played noisily.
Noisily is an adverb, not an adjective. It must modify an action verb, not describe a state.
He loudly chewed his food at dinner.' (when meaning disturbingly).
He chewed his food noisily at dinner, annoying everyone at the table.
Noisily implies the sound bothered others; loudly only describes volume.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: adverb/1

Noisily, loudly, raucously, and vociferously all describe sounds that are hard to ignore, but they differ in tone and context. Loudly is the most neutral of the four — it simply means at high volume, whether pleasant (loudly singing a song) or unpleasant (loudly arguing). Noisily adds a judgment: the sound is not just loud but also unwanted or bothersome to those nearby, such as children playing noisily near a study area. Raucously describes loud, rough, disorderly noise, almost always from a group of people or animals — a raucously cheering crowd or a flock of raucously squawking birds. Vociferously is more formal and is reserved for vocal expressions of opinion: people protest vociferously or complain vociferously. Use noisily when the key message is that the sound disturbs others. Use loudly when only volume matters. Use raucously for chaotic group noise and vociferously for forceful speech.

noisily ↗loudly ↗raucouslyvociferously

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

  • rather noisily
  • quite noisily
  • too noisily
  • extremely noisily

Phrases

  • eat noisily
  • breathe noisily
  • run noisily
  • hum noisily
  • chew noisily
  • clatter noisily

Etymology

LatinFrenchEnglish

Noisily is formed by adding the adverb suffix -ly to the adjective noisy. Noisy comes from the noun noise, which entered English through Old French noise ('din, disturbance, quarrel'), which itself traces back to Latin nausea ('seasickness, discomfort'). The meaning moved from physical unease to the experience of unwanted sound — a shift that already happened in Old French.