Literally

How to spell literally

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce literally

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does literally mean?

1. adverbIn the exact and actual sense of the words, without exaggeration or metaphor.
2. adverbUsed informally for emphasis, to stress that a statement feels true or extreme.

Literally in a sentence

• The recipe should be followed literally, with no substitutions.

• After the long shift he was literally falling asleep at his desk.

• Translating the poem literally word for word loses much of its rhythm.

• The queue for tickets was literally around the block by noon.

Where does literally come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin noun littera, which meant 'a letter of the alphabet'. From it came the adjective litteralis, meaning 'of or relating to letters', and so 'taking words at their face value, following the actual words'. The sense passed through Old French as literal before settling into English in the late 1300s, where 'literal' described an interpretation that stuck strictly to the written text rather than a figurative or allegorical reading. The adverb 'literally' was then built by adding the familiar -ly ending, and originally meant 'word for word' or 'in the exact sense'. Over the last two centuries it also picked up a much-debated intensifying use, where speakers stretch it to mean 'absolutely' even when no literal truth is involved. The spelling trap lives in the middle and end: a single t (despite the double-t Latin littera behind it) but a double l before the -y, a mismatch that catches many fluent writers.

How the word is built

• liter- (from Latin littera: letter)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)