completely
Americanadverb
-
to the whole amount or extent; fully.
Although the river never dries up completely, there are times when the water is barely a trickle.
-
thoroughly; totally.
I was so completely disoriented by the chiming of Big Ben as I stood below it that I walked into someone with my ice cream.
Great storytelling and successful social media campaigns are completely interconnected.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of completely
Explanation
Use completely to describe something that is totally and utterly...something. A completely ridiculous idea is absolutely crazy and stupid. Completely is an adverb that comes from the Latin completus, "to fill up." We use it to mean "entirely" or "wholly." So if a building is completely destroyed, no part of it is left standing. Reading a newspaper story or watching a documentary film completely means you finished it from beginning to end. And doing so can completely change your view on an issue.
Vocabulary lists containing completely
Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -ly
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Novel Study: The Hobbit, Chapters 6–9
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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.
“We felt the speaking version of the character was weird and disturbing and the voice never completely even matched what I thought Wile E. would sound like,” Green says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
The Moon is not completely cut off from sunlight, however.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
It contains enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by around 52 meters if it were to melt completely.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 25, 2026
And in case you didn’t know, “duvateen” is the fabric they use on movie sets to completely block out the light.
From Salon ● Aug. 25, 2026
Elliot, meanwhile, flipped through page after page of the firsthand account, ignoring me completely.
From "Glitch" by Laura Martin
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.
