literally

adv

Etymology: Etymology tree Late Latin littera Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-der.? Proto-Italic *-ālis Late Latin -ālis Late Latin litterālisbor. Old French literalbor. Middle English literal Proto-Indo-European *leyg-der. Proto-Germanic *līkąder. Proto-Germanic *-līkaz Proto-Germanic *-ê Proto-Germanic *-līkê Proto-West Germanic *-līkē Old English -līċe Middle English -ly Middle English litteraly English literally From Middle English litteraly. See literal and letter. By surface analysis, literal + -ly.

1. In a literal manner; exactly as stated, word for word.

   “He's prone to exaggeration, so don't take what he says literally.”

   “There are literally millions of individual pieces of space debris orbiting Earth.”

2. In a literal manner; exactly as stated, word for word.

   “When I saw on the news that there would be no school tomorrow because of the snowstorm, I literally jumped for joy, and hit my head on the ceiling fan.”

   “I didn't have time to repair the wall, so I literally just papered over the cracks.”

3. In a literal manner; exactly as stated, word for word.

   “My daughter's pet rabbit had babies, and now we've literally got rabbits coming out of our ears.”

   “What literally broke the ice that first night was when a 98-year-old retired professor spoke up. “Well, I have a choice of what to think about when I have insomnia at night. Being a lover of mathematics, last night when I couldn't sleep, I decided to calculate the tonnage of ice I delivered as a boy.””

4. As an intensifier.

   “I had no idea, so I was literally guessing.”

   “I was literally having breakfast when she arrived.”

5. As an intensifier.

   “He was so surprised, he literally jumped twenty feet in the air.”

   “On 9/11 people were literally glued to their TV sets.”

6. Used as a generic downtoner: just, merely.

   “It's not even hard⁠ to make—you literally just put it in the microwave for five minutes and it's done.”

   “It won't take me long to get back, 'cause the store's literally two blocks away.”