literally

Adverb

• in a literal sense
  • "literally translated"
  • "he said so literally"
• (intensifier before a figurative expression) without exaggeration
  • "our eyes were literally pinned to TV during the Gulf War"

Adv

• Word for word, exactly as stated.
• Without overstatement or understatement, or false or misleading words.
• Word for word, exactly as stated.
• With phrasings that might normally be used or understood as figurative: truly; not figuratively; not as an idiom or metaphor.
• Word for word, exactly as stated.
• Draws attention to a pun or other wordplay involving an idiom.
• As an intensifier.
• Used as a general intensifier or dramatiser, sometimes tending towards a meaningless filler.
• As an intensifier.
• Used as an intensifier with statements or terms that are in fact meant figuratively and not word for word as stated: virtually, so to speak.
• Used as a generic downtoner: just, merely.

Examples

• He was so surprised, he literally jumped twenty feet in the air.
• He's prone to exaggeration, so don't take what he says literally.
• I didn't have time to repair the wall, so I literally just papered over the cracks.
• I had no idea, so I was literally guessing.
• I was literally having breakfast when she arrived.
• It won't take me long to get back, 'cause the store's literally two blocks away.
• It's not even hard⁠ to make—you literally just put it in the microwave for five minutes and it's done.
• Literally who is this?
• My daughter's pet rabbit had babies, and now we've literally got rabbits coming out of our ears.
• On 9/11 people were literally glued to their TV sets.
• People can't even express their opinions freely in this country any more. Literally 1984!
• She was literally like, "What?", and I was literally like, "Yeah".
• There are literally millions of individual pieces of space debris orbiting Earth.
• 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.

Synonyms

actually, all things considered, as a matter of fact, but, by right, come to think of it, fact is, forsooth, frankly, honestly, in actuality, in fact, in faith, in point of fact, in reality, in truth, indeed, just, literally, merely, no more than, nothing but, only, properly, really, right As in whose properly was the lost wallet?, simply, soothfast, soothly, to tell the truth, truly, truthfully, unfiguratively, unmetaphorically, verily, wis

Antonyms

figuratively, idiomatically, metaphorically, virtually