LITERALLY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does literally mean? 

• LITERALLY (adverb)
  The adverb LITERALLY has 2 senses:

1. in a literal sense

2. (intensifier before a figurative expression) without exaggeration

  Familiarity information: LITERALLY used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LITERALLY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In a literal sense

Context example:

he said so literally

Antonym:

figuratively (in a figurative sense)

Pertainym:

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

Sense 2

Meaning:

(intensifier before a figurative expression) without exaggeration

Context example:

our eyes were literally pinned to TV during the Gulf War

Domain usage:

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

 Context examples 

It is literally a see-through galaxy.

(Dark Matter Goes Missing in Oddball Galaxy, NASA)

The film camera is initially intended to be used by researchers who literally want to gain better insight into many of the extremely rapid processes that occur in nature.

(World's Fastest Film Camera, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

"And so we could literally count them to see how long each dinosaur had been developing."

(Slow-cooking dinosaur eggs may have contributed to extinction, Wikinews)

They are considered primitive building blocks of the solar system that are literally frozen in time.

(Rosetta's 'Philae' Makes Historic First Landing on a Comet, NASA)

A small computer that literally fits in the palm.

(Palmtop, NCI Thesaurus)

She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps! She who is usual so alert, have done literally nothing all the day; she even have lost her appetite.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

What we’ve got to do is actually and literally to clear that raffle.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Literally, he lived only to aspire—after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"We show that the paradox of nitrogen is literally 'written in stone,'" said co-author Scott Morford of UC Davis.

(New source of global nitrogen discovered: Earth’s bedrock, National Science Foundation)

Do you mean literally or figuratively?

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)