How to use literally in a sentence
40 example sentences · adverb
Literally means without overstatement or understatement, or false or misleading words. Example: “He's prone to exaggeration, so don't take what he says literally.”
Examples of literally by meaning
adverbWithout overstatement or understatement, or false or misleading words.
- He's prone to exaggeration, so don't take what he says literally.
- There are literally millions of individual pieces of space debris orbiting Earth.
adverbWith phrasings that might normally be used or understood as figurative: truly; not figuratively; not as an idiom or...
- When I saw on the news that there would be no school tomorrow because of the snowstorm, I literally jumped for joy, and hit my head on the ceiling fan.
- I didn't have time to repair the wall, so I literally just papered over the cracks.
- It was a panic, literally, in a whorehouse!1969, Allen V. Ross, Vice in Bombay, London: Tallis Press, page 142
adverbDraws attention to a pun or other wordplay involving an idiom.
- My daughter's pet rabbit had babies, and now we've literally got rabbits coming out of our ears.
- What literally broke the ice that first night was when a 98-year-old retired professor spoke up.2013 March 27, Melanie Kloetzel, Carolyn Pavlik, editor, Site Dance: Choreographers and the Lure of Alternative Spaces, University Press of...
- Profit and corporate giving are, quite literally, two sides of the same coin.2025 July 1, Filippo Menga, Thirst: The Global Quest to Solve the Water Crisis, Verso Books, →ISBN, page 91
adverbUsed as a general intensifier or dramatiser, sometimes tending towards a meaningless filler.
- I had no idea, so I was literally guessing.
- I was literally having breakfast when she arrived.
- She was literally like, "What?", and I was literally like, "Yeah".
adverbUsed as an intensifier with statements or terms that are in fact meant figuratively and not word for word as stated.
- He was so surprised, he literally jumped twenty feet in the air.
- People can't even express their opinions freely in this country any more. Literally 1984!
adverbUsed as a generic downtoner: just, merely.
- It's not even hard to make—you literally just put it in the microwave for five minutes and it's done.
- It won't take me long to get back, 'cause the store's literally two blocks away.
More sentences with literally
- God, could you stop perving out over my sister? She's literally 14.From the entry perv
- She's literally perfect in every way. She just has it, you know? A total it girl.From the entry it girl
- Possibly derived from the Italian name of the game: Mosca cieca, which literally means "blind fly".From the entry blind-fly
- The indigenous Taíno name for the island of Puerto Rico was 'Borikén', which literally means "Homeland of the People".From the entry Puerto Rico
- The expression "break a leg!" should not be taken literally.From the entry expression
- Me after ignoring all bad reviews on a rose from Shein and it literally starts electrocuting my clih.From the entry rose
- Jamie's always preaching about how we need to save a planet when she drives literally everywhere she goes. Like, hypocritical much?From the entry much
- Titan + -id → Titanid, literally “female Titan”From the entry -id
- Nereus + -id → Nereid, literally “sprung of Nereus”From the entry -id
- Some foods and drinks, like wine, only reach their full taste at maturity, which literally comes at a price.From the entry maturity
- Literally: What is your age in years?From the entry how old are you
- When I found out my two favorite musicians would be recording an album together, I literally planned my own funeral arrangements and died.From the entry die
- Many people love their backyard birds, but some of us may not realize that those feathery friends are also literally dinosaurs, in a biologically accurate sense of that word.From the entry dinosaur
- Eventually their misanthropy got so bad that they built a ferroconcrete underground home in the farthest boondocks of North Dakota so that they could literally live under a rock.From the entry live under a rock
- I’m literally in jeans and a T-shirt every day of my life.”2025 December 6, Tom Murray, quoting Sydney Sweeney, “Sydney Sweeney admits her silence on divisive jeans advert made controversy worse”…. From the entry jeans
- “I’m literally just living a normal life while also, you know, discovering interdimensional communication.”2025 June 13, Kashmir Hill, “They Asked ChatGPT Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry interdimensional
- In Taylor's Ultimate Arch-Enemy, the main character's power is literally aura farming.2025 April 26, u/Wstiglet, “Aura farming”, in r/WormFanfic (Reddit post), archived from the original on 04 Jul 2026. From the entry aura farming
- The adage about egoists who want to be the bride at every wedding proved literally true.2025 May 9, Danny Heitman, “Mark Twain’s legacy is not his tall tales. It’s his larger-than-life persona.”, in The Christian Science Monitor. From the entry the bride at every wedding
- If we ever use them, the world literally might come to an end.2025 September 23, Donald Trump, speech at United Nations. From the entry no nothing
- Literally, the only ingredient is organic mango that’s been stripped into slices and dried.2025 October 29, Jennifer Heimlich, “I tried the healthy Trader Joe’s snacks that dietitians recommend”, in The Independent, London…. From the entry TJ's
- “When I was in Switzerland going through rehab, literally, I was like, ‘What’s the point?2024 July 9, Martynas Ruseckas, “After her brother suffered a brain injury in a bike crash, this Olympic BMX rider has a new perspective…. From the entry BMX
- I am literally going to draw some rectangle shapes for the pillars.2024 February 22, "Bartleby", “The making of a PowerPoint slide”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 27 Sep 2024. From the entry powerpoint
- You mean literally video footage and geoconfirmation that you could literally verify yourself isn’t a good source?2023 October 18, NKinCode, “If Israël had any kind of proof it would be all over the Western world rn.”, in r/Conspiracy. From the entry geoconfirmation
- Every other post to this subreddit is literally that, and it's getting kinda regarded.2022 November 27, u/UniqueCod69, “Go find the MG2 Discord elsewhere.”, in Reddit, r/mapleservers. From the entry regarded
- I literally didn’t understand her question: How could you ask what an egg cream was?2022, Robert Kanigel, Young Man, Muddled, Bancroft Press, →ISBN, page 16. From the entry egg cream
Meaning of literally
- adverb Without overstatement or understatement, or false or misleading words.
- adverb With phrasings that might normally be used or understood as figurative: truly; not figuratively; not as an idiom or metaphor.
- adverb Draws attention to a pun or other wordplay involving an idiom.
Questions about literally in a sentence
- How do you use literally in a sentence?
- Literally is used as an adverb. For example: “He's prone to exaggeration, so don't take what he says literally.”
- What is a short sentence with literally?
- “Literally: What is your age in years?”
- What does literally mean?
- Literally means without overstatement or understatement, or false or misleading words.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: literally (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “How to use literally in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/literally. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.