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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

badly.

In a bad manner.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adv/ˈbæd.li/
  1. In a bad manner.

    Things are going badly for her: she did badly in her exams owing to a badly designed studying schedule.
    Don't think badly of me: give me the benefit of the doubt.
  2. Very much; to a great degree.

    I want it so badly.
    Look at these split ends! You badly need a haircut!
Where this word comes from

From Middle English badly, baddely, baddeliche, equivalent to bad + -ly.

adj/ˈbæd.li/
  1. Ill, unwell.

    Northern-England
    He's never badly.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English badly, baddely, baddeliche, equivalent to bad + -ly.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.