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# awfully

«awfully» in Mova's school dictionary: **Very; extremely: «awfully kind», «awfully sorry»** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

adverb (awfully)

### meaning for a pupil

1) (informal, a little old-fashioned) Very; extremely: «awfully kind», «awfully sorry». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/awfully/#m1)

2) Very badly: «He behaved awfully.» [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/awfully/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In old British books like The Wind in the Willows and Alice, characters say «awfully» a lot: «awfully nice», «awfully sorry». In modern speech it is a polite, slightly posh way to say «very». Sense 2 (badly) is less common.

### examples

- That's awfully kind of you. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/awfully/#x1)
- I'm awfully sorry I'm late. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/awfully/#x2)
- It's awfully cold today. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/awfully/#x3)
- «This is awfully jolly!» said Tom. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/awfully/#x4)
- She sang awfully, so everyone laughed. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/awfully/#x5)
- Thank you awfully for the present. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/awfully/#x6)

### note

Awfully usually means «very» (even with good words: «awfully nice»). Awful (adjective) means very bad. Spelling: awful + ly — two l's (awfully).

### In the corpora

- [«He did you awfully well!» snaps the Badger.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/47-willows-ch6-part3-toad-tricks-the-rat/11/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «awfully» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/A/awfully/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.