literally — English Dictionary

Adverb

1. In a literal manner; exactly as stated, word for word. Without overstatement or understatement, or false or misleading words.

   Synonyms

   ad verbum

   Examples

   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. With phrasings that might normally be used or understood as figurative: truly; not figuratively; not as an idiom or metaphor.

   Synonyms

   ad verbumactuallyreallyunfigurativelyunmetaphorically

   Antonyms

   figurativelyidiomaticallymetaphoricallyvirtually

   Examples

   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.

   More examples (4)

   Lights were going out. A raid! A raid! It was a panic, literally, in a whorehouse!

   All events became omens; I lost the ability to take anything literally.

   […] Men In Black 3 finagles its way out of this predicament by literally resetting the clock with a time-travel premise that makes Will Smith both a contemporary intergalactic cop in the late 1960s and a stranger to Josh Brolin, who plays the younger version of Smith’s stone-faced future partner, Tommy Lee Jones.

   As lawmakers and staff rushed out, aides snatched the boxes containing the Electoral College certificates, making sure that the vandals could not literally steal the results of the election.

3. In a literal manner; exactly as stated, word for word. Draws attention to a pun or other wordplay involving an idiom.

   Synonyms

   ad verbum

   Examples

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

   More examples (2)

   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.”

   Outside of all the learned institutions of his country, and while employed with his chisel and hammer, as a stone mason, this man literally killed two birds with one stone; for he earned his daily bread and at the same time made himself an eminent geologist, and gave to the world books which are found in all public libraries and which are full of inspiration to the truth seeker.

   Profit and corporate giving are, quite literally, two sides of the same coin.

4. As an intensifier. Used as a general intensifier or dramatiser, sometimes tending towards a meaningless filler.

   Usage

   • Colloquial

   Examples

   I had no idea, so I was literally guessing.

   I was literally having breakfast when she arrived.

   More examples (3)

   She was literally like, "What?", and I was literally like, "Yeah".

   Literally who is this?

   Pearl: Steven, we are not like the No Home Boys. We are literally standing in your home right now.

5. As an intensifier. Used as an intensifier with statements or terms that are in fact meant figuratively and not word for word as stated.

   Usage

   • proscribed
   • sometimes

   Examples

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

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

   More examples (4)

   People can't even express their opinions freely in this country any more. Literally 1984!

   The house was literally electrified; and it was only from witnessing the effects of her genius that he could guess to what a pitch theatrical excellence could be carried.

   You literally become the ball in a tennis match, you become the report that you are working on […]

   [O]ne can assume that the millions or billions of ringgit spent on the war against drugs have gone down the drain, literally.

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

   Usage

   • Colloquial

   Synonyms

   merely

   Examples

   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.

Adverb

1. in a literal sense

   Antonyms

   figuratively

   Examples

   literally translated

   he said so literally

2. (intensifier before a figurative expression) without exaggeration

   Examples

   our eyes were literally pinned to TV during the Gulf War