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.
But Iran’s missile force, U.S. intelligence assessed, wasn’t completely destroyed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
At this point, sulfide minerals can begin to break down completely.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026
“By the time a final decision is made, it could look completely different,” Lewis said in an email.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
Josh, who worked as a machinist at Tritech, said he had been "working heavy machinery", completely oblivious to the danger he could have been in.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
Yet there is a visible hole in the top, a small triangular opening the size of a quarter, where the iron either smashed or carried away the bone completely.
From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman
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.
