severally

Imagine a group of people being asked to sign a paper, not all at once, but each on their own. That is the idea behind "severally." It means something is done or considered separately, person by person or thing by thing, rather than together as one group. You would not usually use it in everyday chat, but you may see it in formal writing. For example, "The partners were liable severally" means each partner was responsible in an individual way, not only as part of the group. Think of it as dealing with each member one at a time instead of treating them as a single whole.

"Severally" describes something done, owned, considered, or borne individually and separately rather than jointly or as a whole group. It appears most often in legal, financial, and other formal writing, where it is important to show that each person or thing is treated on its own. A common legal phrase is "jointly and severally," which means people are responsible both together as a group and separately as individuals. In that setting, "The partners are liable severally" means each partner has individual responsibility.

It is important not to confuse "severally" with the common modern meaning of "several" as "more than two but not many." In "severally," the idea is separation, not number. If people answer questions severally, each person answers alone. If property is held severally, each share is held in an individual way, not as shared ownership. The word often carries the sense of "one by one" or "independently," depending on the sentence.

The word is old and now feels formal or technical, so most learners will meet it in contracts, court language, or careful writing rather than in daily conversation. Still, the core picture is simple: instead of looking at a set of people or things together, you look at each one apart from the rest. So, if something is handled "severally," it is being handled separately, with individual attention or responsibility rather than joint treatment.