Word.ws English Dictionary

awfully

/ˈɔː.fʊ.li/US/ˈɔ.f(ə.)li/

awfully adverb: badly, terribly.

Adverb

awfully (comparative more awfully, superlative most awfully)

  1. Badly, terribly.
    • She led after the swimming and cycling, but ran awfully and came in fourth.
  2. (not comparable) Very; exceedingly; extremely; excessively.
    • It was wondrous. 'I'm awfully glad I came now,' his thought ran; 'I'm managing it rather well.'1912, Arnold Bennett, The Grim Smile of the Five Towns
    • It’s awfully considerate of you to think of me here / And I’m most obliged to you for making it clear that I’m not here1968, Syd Barrett, “Jugband Blues”, in A Saucerful of Secrets, performed by Pink Floyd
  3. (archaic) In a manner inspiring awe.
  4. (archaic) Reverently.
  5. (obsolete) Fearfully.
    • I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the face, looked awfully around for it. It was not there.1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC

awfully meaning in Bengali and Malayalam

awfully in Bengali

অত্যন্ত, ভীষণভাবে

awfully in Malayalam

extremely, very, really
അങ്ങേയറ്റം, വളരെ, ഏറെ, അത്യന്തം, അതീവ, നന്നാ
very much, a lot, a million
വളരെയധികം, ഏറെ, ഒട്ടേറെ, ഭൂയ, കൂടുതൽ, വളരെ
terribly, very badly, dreadfully
വളരെ മോശമായി, അങ്ങേയറ്റം മോശമായി, വളരെ ചീത്തയായി, മഹാമോശമായി, വളരെമോശപ്പെട്ട രീതിയിൽ, ഭയങ്കര മോശമായ രീതിൽ

Examples of awfully in a sentence

  • Calling a happy person gay seems awfully dated nowadays; people will assume you mean something else.
  • That TV series has become awfully formulaic in the last couple of seasons.
  • Washington is awfully deserted now that every congressman is out on the hustings.

All 40 example sentences with awfully

Synonyms of awfully

17 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of awfully

Forms of awfully

comparativemore awfully
superlativemost awfully

Origin of awfully

From awful + -ly.

Questions about awfully

What does awfully mean?
Awfully means badly, terribly.
What is awfully in Bengali?
Awfully in Bengali is অত্যন্ত, ভীষণভাবে. See Awfully meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is awfully?
Awfully is an adverb.
How do you pronounce awfully?
Awfully is pronounced /ˈɔː.fʊ.li/ (UK).

Words near awfully in the dictionary

  1. awfulizes
  2. awfulizing
  3. awfull
  4. awfuller
  5. awfullest
  6. awfully
  7. awfulness
  8. awfulnesses
  9. AWFULs
  10. awfy
  11. AWG

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: awfully (page history and authors); awfully (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); awfully (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-awfully.wav.

Cite this entry: “awfully.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/awfully. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.