scientifically

the adverb 'scientifically' is built upon the adjective 'scientific', which itself originates from the latin word scientia, meaning 'knowledge'. the root scire, 'to know', is of proto-indo-european origin, related to the concept of separating or distinguishing one thing from another, a fundamental act of acquiring knowledge. the suffix -ificus denotes 'making' or 'producing', thus 'scientific' literally means 'knowledge-making'. the addition of the adverbial suffix -ally transforms it to describe the manner in which an action is performed—specifically, in a way that follows the systematic, evidence-based methods of producing knowledge.

Structure: scient (know) + ific (making) + ally (adverb suffix) scient (from latin scientia 'knowledge', from scire 'to know', functioning as the core root), ific (from latin -ificus 'making, causing', an adjectival suffix), ally (from latin -alis via old french -el, forming adverbs from adjectives)