literally.
In a literal manner; exactly as stated, word for word.
Meaning & usage
In a literal manner; exactly as stated, word for word. Without overstatement or understatement, or false or misleading words.
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.
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.
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.
In a literal manner; exactly as stated, word for word. Draws attention to a pun or other wordplay involving an idiom.
My daughter's pet rabbit had babies, and now we've literally got rabbits coming out of our ears.
As an intensifier. Used as a general intensifier or dramatiser, sometimes tending towards a meaningless filler.
I had no idea, so I was literally guessing.
I was literally having breakfast when she arrived.
As an intensifier. Used as an intensifier with statements or terms that are in fact meant figuratively and not word for word as stated.
He was so surprised, he literally jumped twenty feet in the air.
On 9/11 people were literally glued to their TV sets.
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.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂leyH-der. Old Latin leitera Latin līterader.? Proto-Hellenic *dipʰtʰérā? Ancient Greek διφθέρᾱ (diphthérā)bor. Etruscan [Term?]bor.? Latin littera Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *h₂élisder.? Proto-Italic *-ālis 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.
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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.