terribly

adverb

ter·​ri·​bly ˈter-ə-blē 

ˈte-rə-

1

: to an extreme degree : very : extremely

became terribly ill

had a terribly nice time

got terribly excited

I had tried a little radio before the war and hadn't been terribly impressed with it at the time.

—Walter Cronkite

He and Jimmy got into a quarrel about the girl's being fired, and it got terribly bitter.

—Virginia Foster Durr

2

: in a terrible way : very badly, poorly, or unpleasantly

behaving terribly

They were treated terribly.

This can be regarded as a somewhat progressive attitude because it is true that women were terribly abused in the Roman world.

—Norman F. Cantor

And then the next year I played terribly and finished close to last.

—Gene Littler

3

: very much

I miss you terribly.

Synonyms

• achingly
• almighty
• archly
• awful
• awfully
• badly
• beastly
• blisteringly
• bone
• colossally
• corking
• cracking
• damn
• damned
• dang
• deadly
• desperately
• eminently
• enormously
• especially
• ever
• exceedingly
• exceeding
• extra
• extremely
• fabulously
• fantastically
• far
• fiercely
• filthy
• frightfully
• full
• greatly
• heavily
• highly
• hugely
• immensely
• incredibly
• intensely
• jolly
• majorly
• mightily
• mighty
• monstrous [chiefly dialect]
• mortally
• most
• much
• particularly
• passing
• rattling
• real
• really
• right
• roaring
• roaringly
• seriously
• severely
• so
• sore
• sorely
• spanking
• specially
• stinking
• such
• super
• supremely
• surpassingly
• that
• thumping
• too
• unco
• uncommonly
• vastly
• very
• vitally
• way
• whacking
• wicked
• wildly

Examples of terribly in a Sentence

I'm terribly sorry to bother you

Recent Examples on the Web

Mixed results plague almost every department, with particularly weak cinematography matching a production that seems at once wonderfully fearless and terribly confused. —Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 27 Dec. 2024

Koo, who is still with the team, is on the third year of a five-year $24.25 million contract, but kicker contracts aren’t terribly binding. —Josh Kendall, The Athletic, 26 Dec. 2024

And secondly, the customer profile of Alamo Drafthouse is not terribly dissimilar to Crunchyroll. —Samantha Masunaga, Los Angeles Times, 26 Dec. 2024

Though unexpectedly long, nine months is not terribly outlandish; other NASA astronauts have stayed on the ISS for far longer. —Josh Dinner, Space.com, 18 Dec. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1