orthographically

Orthographically is an adverb used to describe matters relating to orthography, the conventional spelling system of a language. It derives from orthographic, which in turn comes from Greek orthos “right, correct” and graphe “writing.”

Orthography encompasses not only the arrangement of letters to form words but also capitalization, diacritics, punctuation, hyphenation, and the rules that govern their use. The term “orthographically” is often used when discussing how a word or text conforms to or diverges from these conventions.

In practical terms, orthographically describes the written form of a word. For example, English orthography distinguishes color versus colour; the two are orthographically distinct variants of the same word. Some languages have more regular orthographies, while others preserve historical spellings that do not match modern pronunciation.

Linguists, lexicographers, editors, and educators discuss orthography to describe standard spellings, spelling reform, and typographic conventions. Dictionaries, style guides, and spell checkers encode the orthographic rules of a language, helping writers produce text that is conformant and recognizable to readers.