horribly

adv — 3 senses

horribly

adv

UK /ˈhɒɹɪbli/ · US /ˈhɔɹəbli/

Etymology From Middle English horribly, horribely, horribliche, horriblelyche, equivalent to horrible + -ly.

1

Manner In a horrible way; very badly.

  • The beginning art students displayed their horribly executed paintings with hopeful faces.
  • Looking back at the 2020s from our vantage point in 2030, the first great event was the complete destruction of Donald Trump’s Republican Party. As the former Republican consultant Mike Murphy had noticed, there were roughly 300 state and federal elections during the Trump years and Republicans did horribly in most of them.2020 January 2, David Brooks, “A Ridiculously Optimistic History of the Next Decade”, in The New York Times:
2

Often To an extreme degree or extent.

Modifying a negative adverb or adjective

  • Then everything went horribly wrong.
  • The man was horribly nice, yet she still wouldn't marry him.
3

With a very bad effect.

  • Horribly, as he was dying, his eyes reddened.
Synonyms
dreadfully, frightfully, grisly, horrifyingly, terribly, terrifyingly, very, horrendously, awfully
Derived terms
go horribly right

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.