Literally means "really" or "actually" or "in the strict sense of the word." Don't confuse it with figuratively, which means "in an analogous or metaphorical sense," not in the exact sense. See also:
Examples:
- "Very young children eat their books, literally devouring their contents. This is one reason for the scarcity of first editions of Alice in Wonderland and other favorites of the nursery."
(A. S. W. Rosenbach) - "The most important thing in art is the frame. For painting: literally; for other arts, figuratively--because, without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins."
(Frank Zappa)
Usage Notes:
- "Literally in the sense 'truly, completely' is a SLIPSHOD EXTENSION. . . . When used for figuratively, where figuratively would not ordinarily be used, literally is distorted beyond recognition."
(Bryan A. Garner, "literally" in Garner's Modern American Usage, Oxford University Press, 2003) - "For more than a hundred years, critics have remarked on the incoherency of using literally in a way that suggests the exact opposite of its primary sense of 'in a manner that accords with the literal sense of the words.' In 1926, for example, H.W. Fowler cited the example 'The 300,000 Unionists . . . will be literally thrown to the wolves.' The practice does not stem from a change in the meaning of literally itself--if it did, the word would long since have come to mean 'virtually' or 'figuratively'--but from a natural tendency to use the word as a general intensive, as in They had literally no help from the government on the project, where no contrast with the figurative sense of the words is intended."
("literally," The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000) - "Like 'incredible,' 'literally' has been so overused as a sort of vague intensifier that it is in danger of losing its literal meaning. It should be used to distinguish between a figurative and a literal meaning of a phrase. It should not be used as a synonym for 'actually' or 'really.' Don't say of someone that he 'literally blew up' unless he swallowed a stick of dynamite."
(Paul Brians, "literally," Common Errors in English Usage, William, James & Co., 2003) - "The solution, of course, is to eliminate literally. Most of the time the word is superfluous, anyway, and it's easily replaced with another adverb."
(Charles Harrington Elster, What in the Word?, Harcourt, 2006)
Practice:
(a) Some students are getting swept out of the library, _____ speaking.
(b) "When I say I'll murder my baby's mother, maybe I wanted to, but I didn't. Anybody who takes it _____ is ten times sicker than I am."
(Eminem)
