Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: Terribly |
TerriblyAdverb1. (informal) used as intensifiers, as in "terribly interesting"; "I'm awful sorry". 2. In a terrible manner; "she sings terribly". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "terribly" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1010. (references) |
Synonyms: TerriblySynonyms: abominably (adv), abysmally (adv), atrociously (adv), awful (adv), awfully (adv), frightfully (adv), rottenly (adv). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Greatness | Painfully, sadly, grossly, sorely, bitterly, piteously, grievously, miserably, cruelly, woefully, lamentably, shockingly, frightfully, dreadfully, fearfully, terribly, horribly. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Terribly |
| English words defined with "terribly": heinously, het up ♦ monstrously. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "terribly": bogosort, bozo sort ♦ HUNT'S DOG ♦ Khorassan ♦ low-bandwidth ♦ straight-line drawing. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I'm terribly worried about him. He won't eat, he can't sleep, he keeps coughing up blood (The Addams Family; writing credit: Caroline Thompson) We have fire axes -- nothing terribly formidable (Alien³; writing credit: Dan O'Bannon; Ronald Shusett) I say, this is all terribly formal (The Avengers; writing credit: Don MacPherson. Based on the television series by Sydney Newman.) But when you're an overweight child, in a society that demands perfection, your sense of right and wrong will always be terribly skewed (Austin Powers in Goldmember; writing credit: Mike Myers) Oh no. It's just they're terribly comfortable (The Princess Bride; writing credit: William Goldman) | |
Lyrics | I've been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan ("I Left My Heart in San Francisco"; performing artist: Tony Bennett) | |
Clever | Terribly pleased (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | Terribly Stuck Up (1915) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Music |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | ![]() | You and your infernal stock market have hurt Italian progress terribly. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
Theodore Roosevelt | I am hard at work on my message to Congress, and accordingly shall not try to go out or see any one either this afternoon or this evening. All of this work is terribly puzzling at times, but I peg away at it, and every now and then, when the dust clears away and I look around, I feel that I really have accomplished a little, at any rate. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Sylvie and Bruno | Carroll, Lewis | Most libraries would be terribly diminished in bulk |
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams | quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Master Scaufflaire regretted terribly that he had not said a thousand francs |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | But they were terribly long and pointed nails |
Grapes of Wrath | Steinbeck, John | They were terribly excited about the pregnancy |
Gulliver's Travels | Swift, Jonathan | However, I was terribly shaken and discomposed in this journey, though it were but of half an hour |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Business | Foreign companies must take into account that while local manufacturers are not terribly competitive, third country suppliers are. Sales terms are generally a 10 percent down payment and a five-year financing. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Donald Rumsfeld | Oh, certainly. I've been there several times, and I intend to. We spend a lot of time thinking about it. It's terribly important that they succeed. |
Phil McGraw | Well, first off, you'd be amazed how much I agree with what they say sometimes, because sometimes there are problems that are terribly, terribly complex. So I would embrace their ideology in that regard many times. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Terribly" is generally used as an adverb (general) -- approximately 99.92% of the time. "Terribly" is used about 1,258 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adverb (general) | 99.92% | 1,257 | 6,237 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.08% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 1,258 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "terribly": all-too-terribly, mama-terribly. | |
Containing "terribly": not-terribly-poor. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
hands hurt leg terribly | 5 |
important not terribly woman | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "terribly"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | tmerrshëm (horribly, miserably). (various references) | |
Arabic | بشق الأنفس (just, scarce, scarcely, very hard, with greatest difficulty). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | страшно (almighty, fearfully, infernally, miserably, roaring, terrifically), ужасно (almighty, awfully, cruelly, damn, damnably, damned, frightfully, ghastly, miserably, remarkably, roaring, shocking, terrifically, thundering, to death), крайно (extremely, highly, intolerable, miserably, passing, sopping, to death, ultra-, unco, unmercifully, unusually, utterly). (various references) | |
Chinese | 非常 (Abundantly, Badly, Dearly, Very, Very's, Vitally), 可怕 (awful, dreadful, fearful, formidable, frightful, hideous, horrible, terrible). (various references) | |
Finnish | kauhean. (various references) | |
French | terriblement, épouvantablement. (various references) | |
German | schrecklich (abominably, abysmal, appalling, awful, awfully, dire, direly, dreadful, dreadfully, fearful, fearfully, formidable, frantic, frightful, frightfully, grim, gruesome, horrendous, horrible, horrid, horridly, horrific, horrifying, indescribable, indescribably, lurid, luridly, monstrously, painfully, shockingly, terrible, terrificly, terrifying, tremendous, tremenduously). (various references) | |
Greek | φοβερά (awfully, formidably, menace, redoubtably, terrifically, threat), απαίσια (horribly, ominously), τρομερώσ, τρομερά (confoundedly, damned, formidably, terrbly, terrifically, terrifyingly). (various references) | |
Hungarian | szörnyűen. (various references) | |
Indonesian | kebangetan (excessively, overly). (various references) | |
Italian | terribilmente (awfully, damned), spaventosamente (frighteningly, horribly). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | いみ合う (awfully, dear me!, dear!, Good gracious, to be, to come, to go, to quarrel, to snarl, welcome). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | いやに (awfully). (various references) | |
Korean | 참담하게. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | erriblytay.(various references) | |
Romanian | teribil (awful, awfully, damnably, direful, dreadful, exceedingly, excruciating, extraordinary, fearsome, formidable, frightful, ghastly, like old boot, terrible, terrific, tremendous), straşnic (clinking, colossal, considerable, damnably, excellent, excessive, extreme, fine, gee, goody, grand, horrible, jolly, magnificent, mightily, nifty, proper, properly, rigorous, severe, severely, smashing, solid, some, sound, stern, swell, terrible, thundering, tremendous, with a vengeance), grozav (a, almighty, atrocious, awful, awfully, bally, beastly, bully, classy, clinking, Dandy, desperate, dreadful, exceedingly, excessively, famous, fell, first rate, formidable, frightful, gee, ghastly, grand, horrible, horrid, immense, immensely, jolly, killing, like blazes, like hell, lovely, mad, magnificent, mightily, nicely, nifty, plush, plushy, proper, ripping, some, stunning, swell, terrible, terrific, thundering, topping, tremendous, tremendously, uncommonly, vastly, whacking), groaznic (appalling, awful, awfully, baleful, desperate, dire, dreadful, foul, frightful, ghastly, grim, groovy, gruesome, horrendous, horrent, horrible, horribly, horrid, howling, lousy, miserable, miserably, monstrous, sad, scary, shocking, terrible, vile), îngrozitor (abominable, appalling, awful, awfully, beastly, desperate, direful, dreadful, grisly, hideous, horrible, shocking, terrible, terrific, tremendous). (various references) | |
Russian | ужасно (atrociously, awesomely, awfully, bally, beastly, confoundedly, damnably, dooms, fearfully, frightfully, ghastly, miserably). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | veoma (badly, downright, greatly, highly, mighty, most, passing, plumb, real, right, vastly, very), užasno (appallingly, awfully, dreadfully, frightfully, horribly). (various references) | |
Spanish | terriblemente (awfully, beastly, calamitously, deadly, Deuce, frightfully, head over heels, hellish, horribly, jolly, painfully). (various references) | |
Swedish | rysligt (awfully), ruskigt (awfully). (various references) | |
Turkish | son derece (all-fired, almighty, arrant, awfully, beyond measure, cruelly, damn, damned, darned, deadly, deeply, desperately, dire, direful, exceedingly, exceptionally, extreme, extremely, extremity, highly, immensely, in the extreme, in the highest degree, infinitely, intense, intensely, jolly, last, out and out, rattling, revoltingly, sadly, strongly, sublime, thundering, to the nth degree, to the utmost, unco, utmost, uttermost, veriest, with a vengeance), aşırı (acute, beastly, beyond, breakneck, camp, confoundedly, cruelly, crusted, damned, dead, deep, desperate, desperately, devilish, disproportionate, every other day, exaggerated, exceeding, excessive, excessively, exorbitant, exquisite, extortionate, extravagant, extreme, extremely, fancy, ferocious, filthy, fond, fulsome, hard, heavy, hell, hell of, high, horrendous, horrific, hyper-, immoderate, inordinate, intense, intensive, like hell, like sin, outrageous, over, overweening, precious, shocking, splitting, steep, super, thick, ultra, unbounded, unco, unconscionable, undue, unmeasured, unreasonable, violent). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Date | Source | Ezekiel Chapter 27, Verse 35 |
| Greek (transliterated) | 250 BC | Septuagint | PanteV oi katoikounteV taV nhsouV estugnasan epi se kai oi basileiV autwn ekstasei exesthsan kai edakrusen to proswpon autwn |
| Latin | 405 | Vulgate | Universi habitatores insularum obstipuerunt super te et reges earum omnes tempestate perculsi mutaverunt vultus |
| Middle English | 1395 | Wyclif | Alle dwellers of ylis wondreden greetli vpon thee, and the rowers, or the kyngis, of hem. Alle smyten with tempest chaungiden cheris; |
| Jacobean English | 1611 | King James | All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their countenance. |
| Victorian English | 1833 | Webster | All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be terribly afraid, they shall be troubled in their countenance. |
| Basic English | 1964 | Ogden | All the people of the sea-lands are overcome with wonder at you, and their kings are full of fear, their faces are troubled. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Ezekiel Chapter 27, Verse 35 |
| Cebuano | Ang tanan nga mga molupyo sa mga pulo manghibulong kanimo, ug ang ilang mga hari mangahadlok pag-ayo; sila mangalibug sa ilang nawong. |
| Croatian | Svi žitelji otoèki zbog tebe se prestraviše. Kraljevi se njini naježiše, glave pokunjiše. |
| Danish | Over dig gyser alle, som bor på de fjerne Strande, deres Konger er slagne af Angst, deres Ansigt blegner. |
| Dutch | Alle inwoners der eilanden zijn over u ontzet, en hun koningen staan de haren te berge, zij zijn verbaasd van aangezicht. |
| Finnish | Sinun tähtesi tyrmistyvät kaikki saarten asukkaat, ja heidän kuninkaansa ovat kauhun vallassa, vavistus kasvoillansa. |
| French | Tous les habitants des îles sont dans la stupeur cause de toi, Leurs rois sont saisis d`épouvante, Leur visage est bouleversé. |
| German | Alle die auf den Inseln wohnen, erschrecken über dich, und ihre Könige entsetzen sich und sehen jämmerlich. |
| Indonesian-Bahasa Sehari-hari | Semua orang yang tinggal di tepi pantai gentar mendengar nasibmu. Raja-raja mereka pun sangat ketakutan; kengerian tampak pada wajah-wajah mereka. |
| Indonesian-Terjemahan Lama | Segala orang yang duduk di tepi laut itu tercengang-cenganglah akan dikau dan seramlah rambut segala rajanya; mukanyapun sangat pucat. |
| Italian | Tutti gli abitanti delle isole sono rimasti spaventati per te e i loro re, colpiti dal terrore, hanno il viso sconvolto. |
| Maori | Ko nga tangata katoa o nga motu, ketekete ana ki a koe, nui atu te wehi o o ratou kingi, ko o ratou mata kohukihuki ana. |
| Norwegian | Alle de som bor i kystlandene, skal forferdes over dig, og deres konger skal gyse med redsel i sine ansikter. |
| Portuguese | Todos os moradores das ilhas estão a teu respeito cheios de espanto; e os seus reis temem em grande maneira, e estão de semblante perturbado. |
| Rumanian | Toyi locuitorii ostroavelor stau knmqrmuriyi din pricina ta, kmpqrayii lor stau cu pqrul vklvoi de groazq, wi le tremurq faya! |
| Russian | чУЕ П'ЙФБФЕМЙ ПУФТПЧПЧ ХЦБУОХМЙУШ П ФЕ'Е, Й "БТЙ ЙИ УП"ТПЗОХМЙУШ, ЙЪНЕОЙМЙУШ Ч МЙ"БИ. |
| Spanish | Todos los habitantes de las costas se horrorizan a causa de ti. Sus reyes están muy aterrorizados, y sus rostros son abatidos. |
| Swedish | Havsländernas alla inbyggare häpna över ditt öde, deras konungar stå rysande, med förfäran i sina ansikten. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Misspellings | |
"Terribly" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Erribol, teribl, terribaly, terribley. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "terribly" (pronounced te"rublē) |
| 6 | -e" r u b l ē | unbearably. |
| 5 | -r u b l ē | demonstrably, horribly. |
| 4 | -u b l ē | admirably, amiably, amicably, appreciably, arguably, audibly, charitably, comfortably, comparably, conceivably, considerably, credibly, creditably, irresponsibly, irretrievably, irreversibly, irrevocably, justifiably, knowledgeably, equitably, fashionably, favorably, feasibly, flexibly, forcibly, formidably, honorably, impeccably, imperceptibly, implausibly, impossibly, improbably, incomparably, incredibly, indelibly, indisputably, inevitably, inexorably, inexplicably, inextricably, inseparably, interchangeably, interminably, intolerably, invariably, irreparably, irresistibly, measurably, memorably, miserably, notably, noticeably, ostensibly, palpably, passably, peaceably, plausibly, possibly, predictably, preferably, presumably, probably, profitably, reasonably, recognizably, regrettably, reliably, remarkably, respectably, responsibly, sensibly, suitably, unacceptably, unaccountably, unalterably, unavoidably, unbelievably, uncomfortably, uncontrollably, undeniably, understandably, unequivocably, unfavorably, unjustifiably, unmistakably, unpredictably, unquestionably, unreasonably, unseasonably, visibly. |
| 3 | -b l ē | ably, assembly, bubbly, doubly, feebly, glibly, humbly, immeasurably, nimbly, nobly, reassembly, subassembly, superbly, trembly. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "b-e-i-l-r-r-t-y" | |
-1 letter: liberty. | |
-2 letters: birler, briery, riblet, trebly, trilby. | |
-3 letters: berry, beryl, birle, biter, blite, brier, eyrir, liber, liter, litre, relit, retry, riley, terry, tiler, tribe, trier. | |
-4 letters: belt, bier, bile, birl, birr, bite, blet, brie, brit, byre, byrl, byte, lier, lire, lite, lyre, rely, riel, rile, rite, tier, tile, tire, tirl, trey, tyer, tyre, yeti. | |
| Words containing the letters "b-e-i-l-r-r-t-y" | |
+3 letters: irrefutably, subliterary. | |
+4 letters: interlibrary, irresistibly, presbyterial, thimbleberry. | |
+5 letters: deterrability, equilibratory, imperturbably, irretrievably, perdurability, preferability, presbyterials, rebarbatively, reformability, repairability, retributively, reversibility. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Familiar 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Quotations: Non-fiction 10. Quotations: Spoken 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Expressions: Internet 14. Translations: Modern 15. Bible Trace 16. Derivations | 17. Rhymes 18. Anagrams 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.