frightfully
part of speech
adverb
meaning for a pupil
1) (old-fashioned, mainly UK) Very; extremely, as in «frightfully kind» or «frightfully sorry». tree →
2) In a frightening or terrible way. tree →
sense in the lessons
Sense 1 is a posh, old-fashioned British way of talking, common in older children's books: «frightfully good», «frightfully sorry». Toad in The Wind in the Willows talks like this. Sense 2 is rarer: «frightfully injured».
examples
- «Frightfully sorry, old chap!» said Toad. tree →
- It was frightfully kind of you to come. tree →
- The water was frightfully cold. tree →
- The town was frightfully damaged in the storm. tree →
- «That's frightfully clever,» said the duchess. tree →
- I'm frightfully tired after the long walk. tree →
- Mr. Darling was frightfully ashamed of himself, but he would not give in. tree →
note
Adverb from «frightful» (terrible, shocking). In sense 1 it just means «very» and is not about fear; it sounds upper-class and old-fashioned. Similar: awfully, terribly, dreadfully — all can mean simply «very».
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «frightfully» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.