Horribly

How to spell horribly

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce horribly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does horribly mean?

1. adverbIn a way that is extremely unpleasant, badly, or to a very great and distressing degree.

Horribly in a sentence

• The meeting went horribly wrong from the very first slide.

• The soup tasted horribly bitter once it had been left to simmer too long.

Where does horribly come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb traces back to the Latin verb horrere, which literally meant 'to bristle' or 'to stand on end', the way hair physically rises on the skin during a shudder of fear or disgust. From that root Latin formed horribilis, meaning 'causing a shudder' or 'dreadful', and the related noun horror described the very feeling of bristling dread. English took the adjective in through Old French as 'horrible' during the 1300s, and the adverb 'horribly' was built on it soon after using the native English ending -ly. The spelling trap sits in the middle and the end: the doubled r reflects the Latin original, while the ending is -ibly rather than the more common -ably, because the parent adjective ends in -ible. The same horrere root also gives us 'horrid', 'horrify' and 'abhor', all carrying that ancient sense of a physical shiver of revulsion.

How the word is built

• horr- (from Latin horrere: to bristle, to shudder)
• -ible (capable of)
• -ly (adverb suffix)