awfully

«awfully» in Mova's school dictionary: Very; extremely: «awfully kind», «awfully sorry» — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adverb (awfully)

meaning for a pupil

1) (informal, a little old-fashioned) Very; extremely: «awfully kind», «awfully sorry». tree →

2) Very badly: «He behaved awfully.» tree →

sense in the lessons

In old British books like The Wind in the Willows and Alice, characters say «awfully» a lot: «awfully nice», «awfully sorry». In modern speech it is a polite, slightly posh way to say «very». Sense 2 (badly) is less common.

examples

• That's awfully kind of you. tree →
• I'm awfully sorry I'm late. tree →
• It's awfully cold today. tree →
• «This is awfully jolly!» said Tom. tree →
• She sang awfully, so everyone laughed. tree →
• Thank you awfully for the present. tree →

note

Awfully usually means «very» (even with good words: «awfully nice»). Awful (adjective) means very bad. Spelling: awful + ly — two l's (awfully).

In the corpora

• «He did you awfully well!» snaps the Badger.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «awfully» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.