woordelijke

Woordelijke is an adjective in Dutch that generally means relating to words, expressed in words, or word-for-word. The form is derived from the noun woord (word) with the adjectival suffix -elijk, a productive pattern for creating descriptors of a relation to words or language. In everyday usage, woordelijk often appears in fixed phrases such as woordelijk citaat or woordelijke weergave, where it signals a verbatim or exact-word rendering.

In linguistic and grammatical contexts, woordelijk is most commonly encountered in compounds describing parts of sentences or utterances. The standard term for the verbal portion of a sentence is het werkwoordelijk gezegde (the verbal predicate), which includes the finite verb and any auxiliary verbs. Some grammars also use the variant woordelijk gezegde, though the form werkwoordelijk gezegde is more widely accepted. An example is Zij heeft het boek gelezen, where heeft gelezen constitutes the werkwoordelijk gezegde.

In discourse and editing, woordelijk is used to denote exact replication of spoken or written text. A woordelijk citaat is a direct, verbatim quotation, as opposed to a paraphrase or summarized rendering. In such contexts, woordelijk conveys fidelity to the original wording.

Etymologically, woordelijke follows the common Dutch pattern of forming adjectives from nouns with -elijk, linking the noun’s meaning to a characteristic or relationship. While meaningful in both linguistic and literary senses, the use of woordelijke often depends on the fixed collocations in which it appears and may appear in slightly different nuances across sources.