Totally

How to spell totally

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce totally

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does totally mean?

1. adverbCompletely or to the fullest extent.

Totally in a sentence

• The new policy was totally different from the old one.

• She was totally unaware that the meeting had been moved.

Where does totally come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin totus, which meant 'whole' or 'entire'. From totus came the Medieval Latin adjective totalis, meaning 'pertaining to the whole', and that adjective passed into English through Old French as 'total' in the late 1300s. Once English had the adjective 'total', it formed the noun and verb senses and then built the adverb by adding the familiar '-ly' ending, giving 'totally' by around the early 1500s. The root totus also lies behind the modern word 'total' itself and the more technical 'totality', all of them carrying the idea of completeness. The spelling trap is the join: the base 'total' already ends in 'l', so adding '-ly' produces a doubled 'll', which writers often reduce to a single 'l'.

How the word is built

• tot- (from Latin totus: whole, entire)
• -al (adjective suffix)
• -ly (adverb suffix)