Deliberately is an adverb that is used to refer to what is done deliberately. This means that they are actions developed on purpose, with intention.
For example: “The defender deliberately pushed him, therefore the judge should have charged a foul ”, “I am sorry if I have offended you, I did not do it deliberately”, “The owner of the business deliberately closed the doors so that the employees could not leave ”.
Deliberately lying implies not telling the truth knowing that what is said is false.
Deliberately lying or hitting
Take the case of a journalist who is dedicated to providing information related to politics. This man may spread erroneous information by mistake, believing that he was communicating something true when, in reality, the situation was different. But he can also deliberately report things that are not true to protect the image of a political leader who pays him for that purpose.
Let us suppose that the journalist affirms “This afternoon, when Congressman X was having coffee in a downtown bar, dozens of people came to greet him and congratulate him on his legislative work”. The communicator knows that this never happened: however, he deliberately lies.
A footballer who, when jumping to head the ball, makes a sudden movement with one arm and hits an opponent, inadvertently injuring him. On the other hand, if he jumps and elbows his defender so that he cannot contest the ball, he has deliberately hurt him.
When a footballer deliberately hits another, he commits a foul.
Planning and intentionality
The fact that an act is deliberate or not, ultimately, has to do with the planning and intentionality of the subject. When something is done deliberately, a certain goal is being pursued.
To understand this adverb more thoroughly, it is appropriate to refer to the verb from which it follows: deliberate. This is defined as the action of “considering the points for and against the reasons why we could make a decision, before doing so, carefully and carefully”.
The etymology of deliberately
With respect to the etymology of this term, we can say that its origin is found in the Latin verb deliberate, which is made up of the prefix de- (which gives the idea of descending meaning, as can be seen in the words collapse and declare, that also contain it) and the verb librare (which can be translated as “weigh”).
In turn, we can say that this last verb comes from the word pound, from which we obtained a homonym in our language, which serves us, for example, to designate the unit of weight. For the linguist and philologist Calvert Watkins, especially known for his book entitled “ How to kill a dragon ”, this Latin word has an Indo-European root, where its meaning was “scale”, and he believes that we can also find it in the term liter.
Therefore, if we analyze everything said regarding the origin of the word deliberately and the terms that precede it, we can understand that it is a way of acting that consists of «weighing» the potential consequences of an action or decision, looking at them “from above”, that is, from above, from a point where we can clearly see all the pros and cons before moving on.
A voluntary decision
Doing something deliberately supposes a conscious and voluntary decision, which is why it is an action susceptible to punishments or penalties in the legal field, as well as reproaches if we are in friendly relations, for example.
Throughout the deliberation, all the points are evaluated in order to reach a verdict, either to expose it to a group or to base a personal decision on it; implicitly, when we act deliberately we believe we are being fair.
