redelijkerwijs

Redelijkerwijs is a Dutch adverb meaning “reasonably” or “as a matter of reason”. It is commonly used in both everyday language and formal contexts to indicate that a conclusion, expectation, or assessment follows logically from the available facts or from generally accepted standards of rationality. The word is formed from the adjective redelijk (“reasonable”) plus the suffix -wijs, which creates adverbs equivalent to the English “-wise” or “in a … manner”.

In contemporary Dutch, redelijkerwijs often appears in statements that qualify judgments, for example “Redelijkerwijs had hij op tijd moeten komen” (“He should reasonably have arrived on time”). The adverb signals that the speaker is invoking a standard of common sense rather than a strict rule, and it can soften assertions, making them appear more balanced.

The term is also frequent in legal and administrative language. Courts may use redelijkerwijs to describe expectations that a reasonable person would have under given circumstances, thereby establishing a benchmark for liability, negligence, or compliance. In statutory interpretation, “redelijkerwijs” can serve to align the literal wording of a law with its intended purpose, ensuring that the application of the rule does not produce absurd or unreasonable outcomes.

Etymologically, redelijk derives from Middle Dutch “redelīc”, itself traceable to the Old High German “rihtic” (right, just). The suffix –wijs originates from the Old Dutch “wīs”, related to the English “wise”. Together they form an adverbial construction that has been documented in Dutch texts since the 16th century, though its prevalence increased markedly in the 19th and 20th centuries as the language standardized.

Redelijkerwijs remains a versatile term in modern Dutch, employed across journalism, academic writing, and everyday speech to convey judgments grounded in ordinary logic and fairness.