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
Derived 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.
And then she’ll wake up, and we’ll be completely out of sync in terms of what we’re watching.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 9, 2026
China in particular is sitting on massive reserves, which means that country can afford to stay completely out of talks between the U.S. and Iran.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 9, 2026
It was he said, "intolerable and completely unacceptable."
From BBC • Jun. 9, 2026
No one found a way to completely unlock the model, Anthropic said.
From Barron's • Jun. 9, 2026
“Really? Is it talking to me?” he asked, completely misunderstanding again.
From "The Very, Very Far North" by Dan Bar-el
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.
