submodifier

An adverb (such as really, very, pretty, or entirely) used in front of an adjective to heighten its meaning. See: intensifier. See also:

• Adverb of Emphasis
• Degree Modifier
• Downtoner
• Five Tips for Cutting the Clutter
• Modifier
• Premodifier

Examples and Observations:

• "Do you really think any country could truly have a civil war? 'Say, pardon me. [Pantomimes firing a machine gun at someone] I'm awfully sorry. Awfully sorry.'"
  (George Carlin)



• "The buffalo is a surprisingly stupid animal."
  (Ellsworth Huntington)



• "Ham, pigs, tongues, sides of beef seen in the butcher’s window--all that death, I find it very beautiful. And it’s all for sale: how unbelievably surrealistic!"
  (Francis Bacon)



• "It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none."
  (Nigel Tufnel in This Is Spinal Tap, 1984)



• "Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."
  (Oscar Wilde)



• "You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would."
  (Blackadder in "The Black Seal." Blackadder, 1986)



• "But most of them are simple men; and, mark you, just the least tiny bit drunk.
  (G.K. Chesterton, "The Scandal of Father Brown")



• "The use of quite as a strict submodifier, occupying the slot in a sentence that could be filled as easily by pretty, fairly, very, really, moderately, rather, or somewhat, is commoner in British English, as well as being more specific. Most British speakers would recognize quite as denoting a degree of intensity falling between rather and very. This degree of specificity is lacking for American speakers, who are more likely to regard quite as a slightly formal alternative to the more popular pretty or really.
  
  "Mighty as an informal submodifier is mainly American English, and a marker of it to Britons, who normally don't let it rise above its original adjectival duties. Way has a respectable record as a submodifier of fixed prepositional and adjectival phrases (way over the top, way below normal, way too much). It is gaining ground in informal American English as an ordinary submodifier, especially in the phrase way cool (a Los Angeles boutique that is way cool with a funky decor that includes chandeliers made of hats). This is not seen in British English except among the frightening avant-garde of American wannabes."
  (Orin Hargraves, Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions: Making Sense of Transatlantic English. Oxford Univ. Press, 2003)