awfully
Americanadverb
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very; extremely.
That was awfully nice of you. He's awfully slow.
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in a manner provoking censure, disapproval, or the like.
She behaved awfully all evening.
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Archaic.
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in a manner inspiring awe.
shouting awfully the dreaded curse.
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in a manner expressing awe.
to stare awfully.
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adverb
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in an unpleasant, bad, or reprehensible manner
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informal (intensifier)
I'm awfully keen to come
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archaic so as to express or inspire awe
Commonly Confused
See awful.
Etymology
Origin of awfully
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Still, its tale of reform is awfully familiar.
From Los Angeles Times
But if we adjust the details a bit, that sounds awfully close to Elon Musk’s lazy storybook fantasies about charming hobbit villages protected by “hard men.”
From Salon
This week two senior leaders of the British broadcaster stepped down over the actions described above and a question naturally occurs: Isn’t this pattern getting awfully old?
“It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime,” Jake writes, “but at night it is another thing.”
From Salon
Mayor Johnson says the business community is being “awfully unreasonable” in its opposition to the tax and that it should “do some real soul-searching.”
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
