It’s not like this superficially either. That’s literally what the word is.
finite - to have a limit, be bounded
The de- part is acting like it does in words like defraud. It’s not a negative, like you might see in detox, where it means to remove something or undo something. Instead, it simply insists something has been done, not unlike the suffix -ify. You’ve been defrauded. In a manner of speaking, you could say you’ve been “fraud-ified”.
You could say something that has been defined has been “finite-ified”. The possibilities of what it could be were limitless, but you restricted them to something specific. You’ve made it finite. You’ve defined it. It is definite.
It’s more that finite is easier because it has the long I sound at the beginning which clearly designates it as I. The short i sound in most English dialects is a middling kind of “ehh” sound that can be confused for an e a lot when sounding out a word. When I misspell definitely it’s because I spell it defenitely.
it’s the word “finite” with de- in the beginning and -ly at the end. That’s how I remember.
Defiantly going to remember how to spell it now!
It also works for ‘infinitely’
Indefiantly? 🤔😅
That’s actually helpful. Thanks.
Also helps to think of the word “definitely” as meaning “by definition”
Yeah i don’t know to spell defenition
Did you mean “defenestration”?
That helps, but it doesn’t help me remember if it’s “definitely”, “definitley”, or “definitly”.
It’s not like this superficially either. That’s literally what the word is.
finite - to have a limit, be bounded
The de- part is acting like it does in words like defraud. It’s not a negative, like you might see in detox, where it means to remove something or undo something. Instead, it simply insists something has been done, not unlike the suffix -ify. You’ve been defrauded. In a manner of speaking, you could say you’ve been “fraud-ified”.
You could say something that has been defined has been “finite-ified”. The possibilities of what it could be were limitless, but you restricted them to something specific. You’ve made it finite. You’ve defined it. It is definite.
Is it fin-it or fine-ite
I always told people “definitely is spelled like infinitely, so just remember how to spell infinite”
But I suppose “finite” is even better than “infinite” since there’s less to remember.
It’s more that finite is easier because it has the long I sound at the beginning which clearly designates it as I. The short i sound in most English dialects is a middling kind of “ehh” sound that can be confused for an e a lot when sounding out a word. When I misspell definitely it’s because I spell it defenitely.
My reasoning for why “infinite” would be easy to remember is because “infinity” is notably a word with only i as a main vowel (excluding the y)
But I see what you mean too
My reasoning is that infinite is pronounced like definite, unlike finite which is pronounced nothing like definite.