Awfully

How to spell awfully

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce awfully

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does awfully mean?

1. adverbTo a very great degree; extremely.
2. adverbIn a way that is very bad or unpleasant.

Awfully in a sentence

• The new apartment is awfully expensive for its size.

• The team played awfully, losing every match this season.

• She was awfully kind to drive us all the way home.

• The cheap printer performs awfully on photographs.

Where does awfully come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The base word 'awe' came into English from Old Norse 'agi', meaning terror or dread, reinforced by the related Old English 'ege', also meaning fear. By the Middle Ages the adjective 'awful' literally meant 'full of awe', that is, inspiring dread or deep reverence, and the adverb 'awfully' followed it to mean 'in a way that fills one with dread'. Over the centuries the force of the word weakened, much as 'terribly' and 'dreadfully' did, until 'awfully' drifted into a casual intensifier simply meaning 'very'. The spelling trap is that 'awful' drops the final 'e' of 'awe' before the suffix, so writers who picture the parent word are tempted to insert an extra letter or to misjudge the single 'l' that becomes 'lly'. Remember it as awe plus full reduced to -ful, then the adverb -ly added on top.

How the word is built

• awe (dread, reverence)
• -ful (full of)
• -ly (adverb suffix)