LITERALLY

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(intensifier before a figurative expression) without exaggeration

Example:

our eyes were literally pinned to TV during the Gulf War

Classified under:

Adverbs

Domain usage:

intensifier; intensive (a modifier that has little meaning except to intensify the meaning it modifies)

Sense 2

Meaning:

In a literal sense

Example:

he said so literally

Classified under:

Adverbs

Antonym:

figuratively (in a figurative sense)

Pertainym:

literal (limited to the explicit meaning of a word or text)

Credits

Context examples:

Over the years, she started noticing that uninvited guests had apparently been serving themselves at the bamboo buffet—and they were eating like horses…literally.

(Belly up to the bamboo buffet: Pandas vs. horses, NSF)

“Our emotions literally change the way that our brains share information with others - positive emotions help us to communicate in a much more efficient way,” said Dr Leong.

(Mothers’ and babies’ brains ‘more in tune’ when mother is happy, University of Cambridge)

But she lay there limp and lifeless in the bloody, trampled snow, almost literally torn to pieces, the swart half-breed standing over her and cursing horribly.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The first half was perfectly easy, but from there upwards it became continually steeper until, for the last fifty feet, we were literally clinging with our fingers and toes to tiny ledges and crevices in the rock.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The land literally flowed with milk and honey on such occasions, for the lads were not required to sit at table, but allowed to partake of refreshment as they liked—freedom being the sauce best beloved by the boyish soul.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

That was not literally true.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“In the act, my dear Annie,” repeated Mrs. Markleham, spreading the newspaper on her lap like a table-cloth, and patting her hands upon it, “of making his last Will and Testament. The foresight and affection of the dear! I must tell you how it was. I really must, in justice to the darling—for he is nothing less!—tell you how it was. Perhaps you know, Miss Trotwood, that there is never a candle lighted in this house, until one's eyes are literally falling out of one's head with being stretched to read the paper. And that there is not a chair in this house, in which a paper can be what I call, read, except one in the Study. This took me to the Study, where I saw a light. I opened the door. In company with the dear Doctor were two professional people, evidently connected with the law, and they were all three standing at the table: the darling Doctor pen in hand. “This simply expresses then,” said the Doctor—Annie, my love, attend to the very words—“this simply expresses then, gentlemen, the confidence I have in Mrs. Strong, and gives her all unconditionally?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Well, it was this way, returned Mr. Enfield: I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o’clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

After much debate, they concluded unanimously, that I was only relplum scalcath, which is interpreted literally lusus naturæ; a determination exactly agreeable to the modern philosophy of Europe, whose professors, disdaining the old evasion of occult causes, whereby the followers of Aristotle endeavoured in vain to disguise their ignorance, have invented this wonderful solution of all difficulties, to the unspeakable advancement of human knowledge.