Respectively

How it is used

Very common in exam questions, textbooks and papers to match two lists in one sentence. It usually comes at the end of the clause, after a comma. If you miss it, you may swap the values in a problem.

Example sentences

1. Tom and Ana are 12 and 15 years old, respectively.

2. The sides AB and BC have lengths of 6 cm and 8 cm, respectively.

Common collocations

• 3 and 5, respectively
• x and y, respectively
• the first and second, respectively

Related terms

• word problemA maths question written as a short story or real-life situation, which you must turn into numbers or equations before solving it.
• ratioA comparison of two or more quantities that shows how big one is compared with the other, written like 3:2 and read 'three to two'.
• variableA letter or symbol, such as x or y, that stands for a number which can change or which you do not know yet.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• respectively · Academic English & Research

More terms: Word Problems

• average
• proportional
• at least
• estimate
• consecutive
• rate
• work out