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.
“The internet as we’ve known it for the past 20-plus years is going away and it’s going to completely change,” he said.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 3, 2026
Keel Infrastructure, which completely shut down its U.S. bitcoin mining operations, has yet to sign customer contracts for its new data centers, according to Gagnon.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2026
With the Chargers looking completely lost on offense amid an 0-7 start, it’s possible they could become the first 0-17 team in NFL history.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2026
Klum, 53, was completely unrecognisable arriving at her event in what she described as her own chopped-off "left hand".
From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2026
Five minutes later we were coasting up to a small dock on an island that was almost completely taken up by a large craggy mountain.
From "Glitch" by Laura Martin
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
