literallyin a sentencegrouped by contextual meaning
literally as in: literally--not figuratively
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She wasn't literally advocating physical violence.
literally = using the most basic meaning of the words
show 10 more with this conextual meaning
- It's dirty money--literally and figuratively.
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Bird nest soup is literally made from a bird's nest.
literally = actually (using the basic meaning of the words--not treating them as a figure of speech)
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The computer has no common sense. It will interpret everything you tell it literally.
literally = in manner that uses the basic meaning of words (without understanding metaphors, exaggerations, idioms, etc.)
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She thinks the creation story in the Bible is a literal description; while he thinks it is poetic.
literal = uses the basic meanings of words (not metaphors, allegories, symbolic use of language, etc.)
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"What do you want me to do?"
In retrospect I'm sure he meant this literally, that he was asking how he could help, but my ears, solitary and suspicious, heard something else: What do you expect me to do? (source)literally = as true using the basic meaning of the words
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It was she who introduced her to the library in the first place and gave her the initial, even literal, window of opportunity.
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literal = actual (not figurative)
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He tosses his fork over his shoulder and literally licks his plate clean with his tongue making loud, satisfied sounds.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
- It was so dark now we literally couldn't see ten steps ahead of us as we walked toward the woods. (source)
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We forgive him not because he had a heart as figuratively good as his literal one sucked, or because...
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literal = actual
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Some are retooled as living quarters for the kids who are, both literally and figuratively, under his wing.
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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show 89 more with this conextual meaning
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A couple of drunks and wild teenagers had drowned there, and people at the Owl Club said when their bodies floated back to the surface, they'd been literally boiled.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
- TOO WEAK TO WALK OUT, HAVE LITERALLY BECOME TRAPPED IN THE WILD. (source)
- The Japanese literally worked men to death at Naoetsu. (source)
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Visitors imagined the landscape of the badlands to be unchanging, but in fact it was continuously eroding, literally right before your eyes; all day long you could hear the clatter of pebbles rolling down the crumbling hillside.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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And then other things, like this one, happen in a not-literal way, but they still happen.
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literal = true using the most basic meaning of the words
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Then he turned and stood still, with the sun at his back, and studied the water again. It was, he saw after a moment, literally packed with life. Small fish swam everywhere...
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
- It wouldn't have surprised him if one day Beatrice literally chewed Lonna's head off. (source)
- He is the author of numerous books: The Symbology of Secret Sects, The Art of the Illuminati, The Lost Language of Ideograms, and when I say he wrote the book on Religious Iconology, I mean that quite literally. (source)
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From the time we got into the car to the time we came home, my mom literally did not stop talking.
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literally = what follows is actually true -- not an exaggeration
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Knee-jerk reaction. Literally. I kneed His Majesty in the thigh.
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literally = true using the basic meaning of the words (not a figure of speech)
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They take the Bible literally, you know.
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literally = as true using the basic meaning of the words (not an exaggeration, metaphor, or other type of figurative speech)
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[Jugs of very hard cider] were buried in the snow near a clump of evergreens in the center of the park, and Brinker stationed his roommate, Brownie Perkins, to guard them with his life. He meant this literally, and Brownie knew it.
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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I can't bear it, she thought in panic. "Not tonight!" The last two words escaped into a half-whisper. William took them literally.
"Tomorrow then." (source)literally = using the basic meaning of the words
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Well, wasn't there a wall between him and Mildred, when you came down to it? Literally not just one wall but, so far, three!
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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Mother thinks that Mrs. van D. is too stupid for words, Margot that she's too unimportant, Pim that she's too ugly (literally and figuratively!)
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literally = true using the basic meaning of the words (not a figure of speech)
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--she was always so proud of David and would literally have carried his books to school for him if he had asked her to--
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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The Bible says that with the Lord, "a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." Some interpret that as a literal exchange, as in, two days equals two thousand years.
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literal = actual (not figurative)
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He was first up, literally dragging me away.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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They [people with autism] have difficulty interpreting nonverbal cues, such as gestures and facial expressions or ... or drawing understanding from anything other than the literal meaning of words.
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literal = most basic (not metaphorical or figurative)
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Still, the woman literally jumped in the air. Completely vertical, feet off the ground, coffee spilling out of the cup backward, splattering the pavement.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
- Here, we could live free. I mean literally free, as in, not in cages. (source)
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I'm allergic to dragons—literally, not just scared silly.
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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She literally died of fear.
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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When Bilbo came to himself, he was literally by himself.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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The Savage obeyed with a disconcerting literalness.
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literalness = a quality of being actual--not figurative
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I went up to New York with Tom on the train one afternoon, and when we stopped by the ashheaps he jumped to his feet and, taking hold of my elbow, literally forced me from the car.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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In a very few moments it was necessary for Elaine to scramble to her feet, pick up her cloth of gold coverlet and pall of blackest samite and gaze blankly at a big crack in the bottom of her barge through which the water was literally pouring.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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But she lay there limp and lifeless in the bloody, trampled snow, almost literally torn to pieces, the swart half-breed standing over her and cursing horribly.
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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It literally made me bound forward.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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If the guillotine, as applied to office-holders, were a literal fact, instead of one of the most apt of metaphors, it is my sincere belief that the active members of the victorious party were sufficiently excited to have chopped off all our heads, and have thanked Heaven for the opportunity!
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literal = actual (not figurative)
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If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot—say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance—literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine—mine to protect, love, and cherish.
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literally = as true using the basic meaning of the words (not a figure of speech)
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Exerting his renovated powers to their utmost, he was yet filling the arches of the cave with long and full tones, when a yell burst into the air without, that instantly stilled his pious strains, choking his voice suddenly, as though his heart had literally bounded into the passage of his throat.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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Do you mean literally or figuratively?
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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I was so scared someone might hear it that I literally begged Father to take me back upstairs.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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Some things happen in a literal way, Lily.
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literal = actual (not figurative)
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I smiled—it was an inside joke that literally no one else would get.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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It was a gray coat with a fur collar that had literally been chewed up by somebody.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
- The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors. (source)
- Within literally hours, we began our first mission. (source)
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I made a quick scan of the screen and my eyes literally started blurring.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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It is literally the result of your discipline.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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The men were, Louie wrote in his diary, "literally ripped to pieces."
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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He literally goes into a spasm, and it's this early warning sign.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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"We are literally in the heart of Jesus," he said.
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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It's literally going to change the face of the planet.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
- Suddenly there was a loud shout, and someone literally kicked open the side door. (source)
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"There is literally no such thing," she answered.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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Or that Jesus was not born of a literal virgin birth?
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literal = actual (not figurative)
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I thought we were in a church basement, but we are literally in the heart of Jesus.
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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In anything less than a perfectly literal environment, the autistic person is lost.
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literal = actual (not figurative)
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But she had left her past so far behind that she literally did not know how to drive.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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Lord Jesus Christ, we are gathered here in Your heart, literally in Your heart, as cancer survivors.
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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Dimly I recall that first character was still yelling his head off, literally screaming at me.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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Once I start thinking about splitting the skin apart, I literally cannot not do it.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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And after a minute it literally forgets that we're here.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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Thousands of people—literally thousands—had left condolence messages for her.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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Its flash and sound is obvious from literally miles away.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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Her mouth literally moved with each line of dialogue.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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It takes big equipment, and it literally changes the world afterward.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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We have literally dozens of species on the island.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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Of course, in a literal sense they do see us, but we don't really mean anything to them.
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literal = most basic (true using the most basic meaning of the words)
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The three or four stone toilets in the village were literally overflowing with excrement.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
- One had rough, scaly skin—literally scaly, like a fish, but just in patches, not all over. (source)
- ...she'd literally tossed her hands up as one of our classmates struggled to define 'blue collar,' (source)
- I couldn't have done it without you. Literally. (source)
- "You're dead meat," Ari growled. I mean that literally. (source)
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Try translating certain French idioms literally into English and you'll see what I mean.
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literally = in manner that uses just the basic meaning of words
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....but you're actually thinking about how cows literally could not survive if it weren't for the bacteria in their guts, and...
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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He stood away from the eggs for a moment, literally stood and turned away so that he could not see them.
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literally = actually (not just figuratively)
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The trance happens when you don't focus on anything, and the whole big picture swallows and moves around you. She said it was usually metaphoric, but for people who should never do acid again, it was literal.
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literal = actual (not figurative)
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Connor considers telling them that all Roland did was turn them in, but decides life is literally too short to start things up with Roland again.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
- There was an unsettling current in his voice, a genuinely conspiratorial note, as though he believed literally everything that had been said. (source)
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John had never asked formal permission to call; he had merely taken literally Rachel's invitation to come again.
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literally = using the basic meaning of the words
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"I need to polish you up a bit," ...
I didn't realize that when he said "polish," he meant it literally. I had women scrub my body because... (source)literally = as true using the basic meaning of the words (not a figure of speech)
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One year, a girl dropped her token, a small wooden ball, while she was at her plate, and they literally had to scrape bits of her off the ground.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
- I'm not exaggerating when I say this, but my heart literally started beating like I'd just run the longest race in the world. (source)
- Thanks to auxiliary fuel tanks and slender, ultraefficient Davis wings, it could fly literally all day, a decisive asset in the sprawling World War II theaters. (source)
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He could remember the toughest calculus formulas and had nearly perfect pitch as a musician, but he literally could not remember to put his pants on.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
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One American airman, shot down and relentlessly debased by his Japanese captors, described the state of mind that his captivity created: "I was literally becoming a lesser human being."
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
- We literally had to hold on to each other's shirts and walk in single file so we wouldn't trip over one another. (source)
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"Pagans" were literally unindoctrinated country-folk who clung to the old, rural religions of Nature worship.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
- "He sang for me, literally, like this"—and here Kallman gestures with his hand to indicate a space of no more than two feet—"face-to-face." (source)
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What I remember the most from the day Grans died is Mom literally crumpling to the floor in slow, heaving sobs, holding her stomach like someone had just punched her.
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literally = actually (not an exaggeration)
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She pushed me away from her just as she'd pushed my elder siblings away when we lived in New York, literally shoving them out the front door when they left for college.
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literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
- He was the first to show that the human body is literally made of building blocks whose proportional ratios always equal PHI. (source)
- "For a while it got so bad that I got scared," Braden says. "It literally scared me." [referring to instinctively predicting 16 of 17 double faults at a tennis tournament] (source)
- The debate lasted literally up to the August morning when we rented a U-Haul truck, loaded it up with all our worldly possessions-some of us riding with the furniture in the back-and pointed it down I-95 toward Wilmington, Delaware, looking like the Beverly Hillbillies. (source)
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literally as in: literally at death's door
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I literally feel like a prisoner in my own home.
literally = an intensifier (to intensify what is said)
show 10 more with this conextual meaning
- I literally laughed my head off.
- She was literally at death's door.
- Literally everyone was there.
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He imagined the girl reading in the shelter. He must have watched her literally handing out the words.
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literally = an intensifier (to intensify what follows)
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The longer the interview goes on, the more my fury seems to rise to the surface, until I'm literally spitting out answers at him.
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literally = an intensifier (to intensify what is said)
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Anyway, about five minutes after I got there, Henry and Savanna were standing next to me, literally hovering over me.
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literally = so much it was like
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If something didn't move, they literally didn't see it.
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literally = an intensifier (to intensify what is said)
- Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power. (source)
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Our caste was just three away from the bottom. We were artists. And artists and classical musicians were only three steps up from dirt. Literally.
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literally = an intensifier (to intensify what was just said)
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With two children and all the accoutrements that went with them, we were packed, quite literally, to the rafters.
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literally = an intensifier (to intensify what is said)
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show 27 more with this conextual meaning
- Still, of the literally dozens of portraits of Jesus we'd seen since 2003, Colton had still never seen one he thought was right. (source)
- Ms. Queen Marie Antionette Lincoln literally filled a room when she entered it. (source)
- Normal people, when they were looking at the faces, used a part of their brain called the fusiform gyrus, which is an incredibly sophisticated piece of brain software that allows us to distinguish among the literally thousands of faces that we know. (source)
- Nate, who was a friend to me before I even knew what a friend was. Who picked me up, literally, over and over again, and never asked for anything in return except for my word and my understanding. (source)
- But I had a hard time when people at school would say their favorite was something like Dumb and Dumber when they had literally thousands of better options. (source)
- He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room. (source)
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I'm literally starving.
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literally = an intensifier (to intensify what follows)
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She who is usual so alert, have done literally nothing all the day.
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literally = an intensifier (to intensify what is said)
- I seemed literally to be running a race with some confusion to which he was about to reduce me, but I felt that he had got in first when, before we had even entered the churchyard, he threw out— "I want my own sort!" (source)
- Heyward perceived, in truth, that the younger Indian had thrown his form on the side of the hillock while they were talking, like one who sought to make the most of the time allotted to rest, and that his example had been followed by David, whose voice literally "clove to his jaws," with the fever of his wound, heightened, as it was, by their toilsome march. (source)
- It looked, literally, like the scene of a shotgun homicide. (source)
- This time, Colton literally skipped all the way to the CT scan lab. (source)
- One day, when she had literally let me do nothing but dust for hours, I finally asked her. (source)
- Oh, and you no longer have a body that's literally deteriorating. (source)
- As I glance around, I notice a lot of the other tributes are shooting us dirty looks, which confirms what I've suspected, we've literally outshone them all. (source)
- Even the fundamental distinction between an operating system and an application left him confused and disheartened, literally lost in a foreign geography he didn't begin to comprehend. (source)
- The interceptors had such a good handle on the transmitting characteristics of the German radio operators that they could literally follow them around Europe—wherever they were. (source)
- These were the gardens in which Claude Monet had experimented with form and color, and literally inspired the birth of the Impressionist movement. (source)
- I have literally just dragged myself into the tangle of bushes at the base of the trees when there's Cato, barreling onto the plain, soon followed by his companions. (source)
- The elevator doors had begun sliding shut when Dr. O'Holleran appeared in the hallway and literally yelled for us to stop. (source)
- The Grail is literally the ancient symbol for womanhood, and the Holy Grail represents the sacred feminine and the goddess, which of course has now been lost, virtually eliminated by the Church. (source)
- After more than two grueling weeks at Colton's bedside, we had nearly hit the road back to normal—with the elevator doors literally closing, our family inside with balloons—when the whole thing crashed around us again. (source)
- Either they were really happy and grateful, or chose to literally blame the messenger, taking out their ire at the entire airline industry on us. (source)
- I had supposed I had brushed away the ugly signs: but I could literally—for the time, at all events—rejoice, under this fathomless charity, that they had not entirely disappeared. (source)
- It was literally a charming exhibition of tact, of magnanimity, and quite tantamount to his saying outright: "The true knights we love to read about never push an advantage too far." (source)
- I scarce know how to put my story into words that shall be a credible picture of my state of mind; but I was in these days literally able to find a joy in the extraordinary flight of heroism the occasion demanded of me. (source)
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"So she disturbed you, and, to see what she was looking at, you also looked--you saw."
"While you," I concurred, "caught your death in the night air!"
He literally bloomed so from this exploit that he could afford radiantly to assent. (source)
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literal as in: a literal translation
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When translating English to another language, if you translate an expression like "What's up?" literally, it will completely confuse people learning the language.
literally = word for word
show 10 more with this conextual meaning
- That app did a literal translation, so idioms like "drop by" didn't make any sense when translated.
- The Great Wall (literally translated from Chinese as the "long wall") is indeed long.
- The literal translation of the French vin aigre is "sour wine".
- But you just use him to learn the literal meaning of the words; don't follow his explanations and interpretation. (source)
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Sang Real literally meant Royal Blood.
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literally = in a manner that is word for word
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That place was Boca Raton, which, translated from the Spanish, means literally "Mouth of the Rat?"
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literally = word for word
- The literal translation of lokhay warkawal is "giving of a pot." ... Lokhay means not only providing care and shelter, it means an unbreakable commitment to defend that wounded man to the death. (source)
- The Sherpa term for prayer flag is lung ta, which translates literally as "wind horse", (source)
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Cesar blew the air hard out of his mouth and said, "Gallo, caballo y mujer, por la raza has de escoger."
"That better mean 'I promise to be respectful to women,' " she stated.
"Absolutely," he said, though the literal translation had something to do with comparing a woman to a horse and a rooster. (source)
- Thus a literal translation of the name of this beautiful sheet of water, used by the tribe that dwelt on its banks, would be "The Tail of the Lake." (source)
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show 6 more with this conextual meaning
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As any Aramaic scholar will tell you, the word companion, in those days, literally meant spouse.
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literally = in a manner that is word for word
- The root of your name, Sophie, is literally a 'word of wisdom.' (source)
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Holy Grail is the literal meaning of Sangreal.
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literal = word for word
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Sophia literally means wisdom in Greek.
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literally = in a manner that is word for word
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No, that's the literal translation.
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literal = word for word
- A literal translation is reminiscent of Yellowstone Park: "Warning—the varmints in these woods are not tame." (source)
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
- Barkley Cove was quite literally a backwater town, bits scattered here and there among the estuaries and reeds like an egret's nest flung by the wind.† (source)
- I walked Isaac to a seat in the Circle of Trust then slowly worked my way around the Literal Heart.† (source)
- There were literally thousands of worlds in the OASIS, and Halliday could have hidden his re-creation of the Tomb of Horrors on any one of them.† (source)
- I tried to intervene — these threats were too harsh, he didn't understand about Laura and the way she took things literally — but he told me to keep out of it.† (source)
- That Baboo was charmingly literal had always been clear, but in the woods he was a pragmatist.† (source)
- I wave the letter like it's just paper, trash, like once upon a time I didn't literally pour my heart onto this page.† (source)
- Translator's Note: The Chinese term for "sunspot" (Chinese symbol) literally means "solar black spots."† (source)
- I was making sure that Lauren and Luke got most of the rations allotted to me, so I was literally starving.† (source)
- This was the very woman who, as a child herself, had crossed the Piazza without hesitation in order to become his friend; who had shown him the hidden corners of the hotel and bestowed upon him, quite literally, the key to its mysteries.† (source)
- Mamaw's house sat literally five houses away from Mom's-313 McKinley to 303—so I listened to the adults make plans and watched out the window for signs of my sister's return.† (source)
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show 190 more examples with any meaning
- She is no match for the two men, who, on stopping at a closed door, open it and literally throw her inside.† (source)
- The past two years, it had been an overwhelming success in both shops, their well-heeled customers literally snatching the precious creations from one another's hands.† (source)
- Though literally on our back doorstep, the school loomed like some strange, ominous fortress throughout the first weeks of the investigation.† (source)
- An overdose would burn us up, literally.† (source)
- We're taking that literally.† (source)
- We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat.† (source)
- It's our first proper holiday together, and there is literally not one single trip in these that doesn't involve either throwing yourself off something or"—she pretends to shudder—"wearing fleece."† (source)
- She imagined that something had passed between them, that maybe she had quite literally knocked some understanding into his head.† (source)
- The quest for the Holy Grail is literally the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene.† (source)
- Literally, it was weeks.† (source)
- From around the far side of the Homestead, three of the bigger boys appeared, literally dragging Ben along the ground.† (source)
- Tally couldn't believe how much they had salvaged, literally tearing the track from the forest's grasp.† (source)
- VO (PETROCELLI ) You mean he literally drowned in his own blood?† (source)
- It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between "literally" and "figuratively."† (source)
- Tell your friend that I did some digging—not literally, more like rummaging, well, a fair amount of actual looking around—and I think I might have unearthed some very real information.† (source)
- I didn't literally kill Indians.† (source)
- For normal potato farmers, it's not worth doing because they're working with literally millions of potato plants.† (source)
- "For me," she said, "Johnny was literally the boy next door.† (source)
- He pressed the razor to the bone and guided it through the hair, describing an arc across the top of the deceased's skull literally from ear to ear.† (source)
- She said this more than once, and then suddenly she had a hold of his right elbow as she literally led him outside.† (source)
- It was a small town between Fresno and Tranquillity, incorporated and named by a literal-minded farmer in 1866.† (source)
- She was taking "Hot Seat" literally.† (source)
- There's a desk in the detention room with my name on it—literally.† (source)
- I had literally had enough of him, was full of him, and while not precisely happy or elated, I felt finished somehow, made right.† (source)
- It came, literally, out of the blue.† (source)
- It was a vulnerability we were all born with, one that literally grew into an adult's hardheadedness.† (source)
- Almost literally.† (source)
- Furthermore, he had interpreted Kennedy's inaugural charge—to do something for his country—in a typically single-minded and literal fashion.† (source)
- In Hasnapur the metaphorical and the literal converge.† (source)
- My hair is literally sticking straight up in the air.† (source)
- He was being literal about that.† (source)
- At age seven I'd taken this statement literally, but the headmistress in the picture was smoking a pipe, and her name was Peregrine, a kind of hawk.† (source)
- Her aqua hair has been styled so it sticks out in sharp points all over her head, and the gold tattoos that used to be confined above her brows have curled around under her eyes, all contributing to the impression that I've literally shocked her.† (source)
- Tundra swan and Canada geese literally surrounded them.† (source)
- I don't miss the lightning-quick moment as Tirana literally turns the tide on Maven.† (source)
- I felt such pain, literally a physical pain, as if someone had torn off both my arms without anesthesia, without sewing me back up.† (source)
- I mean I literally threw up.† (source)
- Whenever she was conscious of them, which was not often, she was driven back, with a little swooping sensation in her stomach, to the understanding that what she knew was not literally, or not only, based on the visible.† (source)
- I want him to know that he literally has a chair at our table.† (source)
- The way Nacha told it, Tita was literally washed into this world on a great tide of tears that spilled over the edge of the table and flooded across the kitchen floor.† (source)
- Knowing, the deep-soul knowing that my father had, was not, in the law's more literal mind, incontrovertible proof.† (source)
- Quite literally it seems.† (source)
- It was a literal translation of Ruchi lokathinde Rajavu, which sounded a little less ludicrous than Emperors of the Realm of Taste.† (source)
- WE SPEND OUR LAST DAY TOGETHER sleeping under the highway overpass like two homeless people, which literally we both are.† (source)
- He continued: "I should warn you that the chamber we are about to pass into does not literally exist within our planet.† (source)
- I literally have nothing else to give you, but you can hold on to this—something I've touched—and think of me anytime.† (source)
- It was attached to the kitchen —like literally attached, without a door.† (source)
- The commander took everything so literally.† (source)
- He wept as he told us that he literally had to reach down into the graves, lift out and carry the decomposing bodies to the burning pyres.† (source)
- —not creaturely or literal in the slightest, he takes the image apart very deliberately to show us how he painted it.† (source)
- It was so good, in fact, that it became, and remains, the operating system on which literally millions of computers around the world run.† (source)
- Alex is bent close to me—so close I can see his individual eyelashes, like perfect brushstrokes on a canvas portrait—and now his eyes are literally dancing with light, burning as though on fire.† (source)
- Not literally—it was all he could do to walk fast in the snowshoes—but in the sense that wolves run.† (source)
- Though there are literally millions of geckos in south Florida, I swear this one follows me to school and seems to be everywhere I am.† (source)
- Maybe I'm exaggerating it, but my memory is that for a whole class to fit into that room, students literally had to pile on top of each other.† (source)
- I've told him hundreds, literally hundreds of times, I've said the words: The prenup is pure business.† (source)
- Which meant almost literally "death of the shadows."† (source)
- He literally spun out of the library, books clutched in his arms, taking a moment to watch through the window as Amy Hertz proceeded to the circulation desk to return her books.† (source)
- Back then, when she still had to climb on a box to read the plaque, she had thought the chewing and digesting were meant literally and wondered, horrified, why Mo had hung on his workshop door the words of someone who vandalized books.† (source)
- Spray was dangerous; it literally ate your brain.† (source)
- It looked as if someone had literally used a blade to cut the flesh under my feet from the heel to the toes.† (source)
- But it had never occurred to me that anyone could make such a threat and mean it literally as Weylin meant it now.† (source)
- Example: the Chinese pictogram for "integrity" is a two-part symbol of a man literally standing next to his word.† (source)
- Not literally all over her—just staring and accidentally bumping into her in the halls.† (source)
- It meant "don't let it make you crazy" but it translated literally as: "don't put a spoon in your eye over it."† (source)
- And then literally, he draws me to him, so close I can feel the hardness at his groin pressing against my dress.† (source)
- His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface.† (source)
- In Bengali the word for pet name is daknam, meaning, literally, the name by which one is called, by friends, family, and other intimates, at home and in other private, unguarded moments.† (source)
- I grabbed the nearest nurse, literally by the lapels, and I couldn't even pull together complete sentences.† (source)
- The ma whose heart was figurative stone at the outset has his heart turn to literal stone at the end.† (source)
- I don't know if he means it literally or figuratively, but any distinction fades into meaninglessness.† (source)
- They literally wiped the smiles off their races along with the sweat, and returned, dejected, to then* barracks.† (source)
- Which she could actually, literally do, in fact.† (source)
- Here words can kill literally.† (source)
- A moment later, Mrs. Lincoln's face, her dress, her whole body literally started to split down the middle.† (source)
- The theory held that Emeline had stepped in the acid, then placed her feet against the door, thus literally etching the print into the enamel.† (source)
- At first I attempted to relieve it by talking with the others, but though they were as courteous as people can be who are living literally on top of one another, they turned aside my questions and I never learned much about them.† (source)
- The trident literally stuck so deep into my chest that the leading petty officer had to pull it out of my skin.† (source)
- He stood for an unknown length of time, literally paralyzed by all that had happened in such a short space of time.† (source)
- For Nadia this person was her cousin, a man of considerable determination and intellect, who even when he was young had never cared much for play, who seemed to laugh only rarely, who had won medals in school and decided to become a doctor, who had successfully emigrated abroad, who returned once a year to visit his parents, and who, along with eighty-five others, was blown by a truck bomb to bits, literally to bits, the largest of which, in Nadia's cousin's case, were a head and twothirds of an arm.† (source)
- When you're shooting inside a building, the concussion is strong enough that it's a pain—literally.† (source)
- Because it was more than the literal interpretation of the story of creation that toppled.† (source)
- If you believe the Bible is the literal truth, the immortality of Henrietta's cells makes perfect sense.† (source)
- 'Think of any answer you like,' he said calmly and sensitively, as if he didn't wish to bruise me with any accusation or disdain, but wanted me merely to consider this literally.† (source)
- You know, when most girls say they want a big rock, they don't mean, you know, literally a big rock.† (source)
- On the way to the station I can't stop looking over my shoulder; the sudden scream of a police siren has me literally leaping into the air in fright.† (source)
- Big Brim's official title was "Chief of Security," and his job, literally, was to watch Delvin's back.† (source)
- After penetrating hundreds of miles into hostile territory, the raiding force appeared entirely by surprise and caught many of the camp guards literally with their pants down.† (source)
- But sometimes, when I glanced sideways at Rogerson in the car, or right before I fell asleep at night, I would have a sudden flash of his face again, how it had literally changed right before my eyes.† (source)
- She was literally rubbing salt into an open wound.† (source)
- This sounds like an analogy, which I am not very good at— but even if it is taken literally, it is true.† (source)
- His relatives from Kacanik are now scattered from Norway to England and to Australia, a world away, quite literally, from both Kacanik and his new home outside Atlanta.† (source)
- In the paste literally dozens of epic novels have been written that have changed the course of history: Moby Dick.† (source)
- They had no idea this was going to happen; the first time they realized that they were to be left behind was when they found their bags packed out by the curb that day and their home literally missing.† (source)
- The situation was doubly absurd because after spending literally thousands of hours brooding, on duty and off, he could not say beyond doubt that a crime had indeed been committed.† (source)
- I'm sort of convinced that time has literally, and not just metaphorically, slowed down, but that's the kind of thing that would make headlines.† (source)
- Not literally breaking them, but breaking apart couples.† (source)
- Jose Arcadio Buendia took his wife's words literally.† (source)
- TAQWA: literally: "The price of freedom."† (source)
- I told myself he wasn't being literal.† (source)
- Mr. Reed tells students they have to interview someone—a mother or father or grandparent—about their own portages, the moments in their lives when they've had to take a journey, literal or metaphorical.† (source)
- In a space of a few short weeks, he had shrunk, literally collapsing around his lungs as they became the entire focus of his being.† (source)
- Unfazed, Liam pressed his mouth into a tight line, raised his hand, and literally pulled the ground out from under his friend's feet.† (source)
- Mia cradles her head in her hands, as though she's literally trying to disappear into her own body.† (source)
- Nobody on the faculty of any college or university in this part of the country can so much as utter the word Hitler without a nod in your direction, literally or metaphorically.† (source)
- She remembered listening wide-eyed to the story as a child, captivated on a simple literal level by the story of little Christian's heroic journey to the Celestial City.† (source)
- As If That Weren't Enough I sprinted off in search of my friends and (literally) bumped into Chase Wagner, Reno High's storied bad boy.† (source)
- The company's guidance has helped McDonald's franchisees defeat literally hundreds of efforts to unionize.† (source)
- "He peeled out, literally burned rubber," says Christian, "then drove like a maniac—drifting around corners, hitting potholes.† (source)
- More precisely and literally, it was Yves who had come to live with him, but each was, for the other, the dwelling place that each had despaired of finding.† (source)
- As Karl Johnson explained to me, "I've seen young physicians run from these hemorrhagic viruses, literally.† (source)
- It has been much harder for pious Muslims to ignore unpleasant and antiquated passages in the Koran, because it is believed to be not just divinely inspired but literally the word of God.† (source)
- And as I moved toward the center of the circle I felt like I was literally personifying the emotion.† (source)
- It was on that ship that Sister Mary Joseph Praise literally fell into his arms and entered his life.† (source)
- We were literally surrounded by Germans, and the French police had a large headquarters in Dannevilliers.† (source)
- This is literally the only thing I can think of to say.† (source)
- It was destined to be misunderstood, or taken too literally because your ideas are opposed to conventionalism.† (source)
- Apparently, his wife had been a schoolteacher for forty years and had influenced so many of her students that literally hundreds of them had come in from all parts of the country for her funeral.† (source)
- The Prince was literally stunned.† (source)
- More than anything else, mustering that faith, on cue, is what separated him from his peers, and distinguishes him from so many people in these literal, sophisticated times.† (source)
- Ordinarily he would not have stood around on a muddy prairie naked, and yet in some ways it was easier than having to pick up the pieces of his life again, which meant, first off, having to literally pick up pieces of his clothes.† (source)
- In exploring the social and domestic aggression that could cause a child to literally fall apart, I mounted a series of rejections, some routine, some exceptional, some monstrous, all the while trying hard to avoid complicity in the demonization process Pecola was subjected to.† (source)
- "No," returned Johnnie gently, literally.† (source)
- Green-coated jaegers (literally, huntsmen) and the blue-coated grenadiers with their seventeen-inch bayonets had moved up through the steep woods of the ridge—the "terrible hills" —as swiftly and expertly as any Virginia rifleman.† (source)
- A woman's desire literally lights a building on fire, and then a soldier throws her naked body onto a horse, and they totally do it while galloping away.† (source)
- He was literally bug-eyed.† (source)
- The Haitian peasants answered with a proverb: "Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe," in literal translation, "God gives but doesn't share."† (source)
- J. T. thought Venkatesh was crazy, literally—a university student wanting to cozy up to a crack gang?† (source)
- He had married Teresa, a thoughtful, quiet girl who made strawberry shortcake that would literally melt in your mouth.† (source)
- They could cut theirs short during the summers if they wanted to because they'd all shaped up literally.† (source)
- The words stenciled on the box mean "Fragile," but literally say, "Use a little heart."† (source)
- There was no buying, for any price, Cybil and Gage Turner had run into each other—almost literally—in the middle of the night just outside of town as a coincidence.† (source)
- I spin around and smack—almost literally—into Jean-Luc.† (source)
- The taxi, stuffed full of Iranians, weaved through traffic, alternately plunging ahead at full throttle and screeching to a halt as the driver leaned on the horn and called his islamic brothers "saag" a particularly vehement epithet that literally means "dog."† (source)
- The cargo was flying out of the ship, literally; the cranes strained in their efforts to get the bales out as quickly as possible.† (source)
- In the grylmhoch's case, however, the phrase seemed a literal possibility As Prusias sipped his champagne, his eyes twinkled.† (source)
- He told me that the act of writing literally saved his life when he spent two years in solitary confinement.† (source)
- The debates had raged over early morning coffee around the square, and in bars where bankers met after hours, and throughout the courthouse where lawyers huddled to exaggerate the latest testimony, all over town, literally.† (source)
- In a far more frantic manner, President Diem and his brother sneaked out of the presidential palace during the coup, literally running for their lives.† (source)
- It gives me some satisfaction to see the party literally disintegrating, to see these aliens stripping off their highbrow costumes and running for their lives.† (source)
- The people around us were hardworking, boisterous, a little proud of their nickname, yo-go-re, which meant literally uncouth one, or roughneck, or dead-end kid.† (source)
- And I was literally picking up the pieces.† (source)
- This had given him his name, Thlayli, which means, literally, "Furhead" or, as we might say, "Bigwig."† (source)
- I said, and then my stomach twisted as the people onstage literally turned camouflage right in front of us.† (source)
- A better translation would be less literal: 'Imaginary Geography.'† (source)
- When you happened along and saw him doing something that seemed to you to be the very antithesis of his conscience—your conscience—you literally could not stand it.† (source)
- A human body infected by this virus will literally eat itself up from the inside out.† (source)
- Ed, who thought Adventism was all well and good but didn't take it as literally as Belle, didn't see the harm in attending a public school.† (source)
- Maybe he'd been scarred forever—both literally and figuratively—by the one time he'd befriended someone who wasn't his drudge.† (source)
- I once saw her literally throw a fashion consultant across the room because the poor sap had mislabeled her accessories before a showing.† (source)
- For years, Mortenson had known, intellectually, that the word "Muslim" means, literally, "to submit."† (source)
- German also gave us literal translations that became very popular in American English: and how, no way, can be, will do.† (source)
- Beanie was so totally proud of him, she was literally beaming (the first time I've seen her look happy in weeks!)† (source)
- I just literally can't.† (source)
- It took no lives, in the literal sense, but since it took another six to eight feet of fast land off the southern end of the island, four families whose houses were in jeopardy moved to the mainland.† (source)
- He literally had to move heaven and earth to arrive at this systematic understanding and when he was done felt he'd achieved an explanation of existence and our consciousness of it better than any that had existed before.† (source)
- Suddenly I saw a boy lifted into the air, glistening with sweat like a circus seal, and dropped, his wet back landing flush upon the charged rug, heard him yell and saw him literally dance upon his back, elbows beating a frenzied tattoo upon the floor, his muscles twitching like the flesh of a horse stung my many flies.† (source)
- You can imagine their shock when the man broke, literally fell to his knees begging to be protected.† (source)
- The old knight was a good man, but sometimes very literal.† (source)
- Chicago is not hopelessly prostrate....The number of temporary wooden buildings erected for the accommodation of business in the South Division had increased from the hundred or so we saw there two weeks after the fire, to several thousands, and the Lake front and some of the streets are literally lined with these structures, and in some localities trade is active....Some large permanent brick edifices have already been reared on the scene of the ruins, and many others are in the process of erection...† (source)
- That's the last thing in the world, literally, that we want to do.† (source)
- In Afrikaans, Dik Nek literally means "Thick Neck"; it suggests someone who is stubborn and unyielding.† (source)
- It was now a fish out of water, literally.† (source)
- He was literally worth his weight in gold, having earned a world record $437,730, nearly sixty times his price.† (source)
- We hid it in literal sense, too; this catapult had to be underground, so that it would not show to eye or radar.† (source)
- I am literally waiting for my flight.† (source)
- Though the air may have been thin, the wind was such that outposts were sometimes, literally, blown away.† (source)
- Because I could not apply the most basic of rules, I would spend hours trying to solve a single problem until I would literally bang my head against the desk.† (source)
- Lillian drifted away from him, as if letting him understand that she did not insist upon his literal attendance.† (source)
- Do I believe that literally?† (source)
- I know I'll spend time in Tennessee and mend some fences, literally and figuratively.† (source)
- That she was suggesting that somehow we could still be friends literally took my breath away.† (source)
- It was literally hopeless; there was no hope in it.† (source)
- The device is the Desk-Fax, a machine which sends and receives telegrams by literally taking a picture of them.† (source)
- I literally had to help the boy escape from close confinement and load him onto the next boat.† (source)
- The underground, the smiling man said, was the literal summary of the land, and of mysteries contained in it; a statement of greater truth could not be made.† (source)
- It rose so high I think it could literally have touched the clouds.† (source)
- I was quite literally speechless.† (source)
- The monster dropped on its back, the air literally blasted from its lungs.† (source)
- Other passengers and crew...in most cases the flesh is literally stripped off their bones in an instant, stripped away as clean as if boiled off.† (source)
- By the time I pull into Margot's driveway at just after three o'clock, I'm literally drenched in relief, or maybe it's just sweat because the humidity here is ridiculous.† (source)
- These were the very Orthodox, and they obeyed literally the Biblical commandment And ye shall look upon it, which pertains to the fringes.† (source)
- Especially during the summer, the streets so dog mad with heat, untempered, literally steaming with possibilities, none of them good.† (source)
- My usual seat, back row, center aisle, was already taken by Brandon Something, a tennis player who constantly misused the word literally.† (source)
- "I mean I literally bumped into her," he laughed.† (source)
- It was literally torn apart.† (source)
- Korie: We were on family vacation at Disney World with four young kids, literally in the line for Splash Mountain.† (source)
- He had a surprisingly resonant voice, which had literally moved her, quite against her will, to the door.† (source)
- It was what we called graveyard talk both literally and figuratively, words never to be spoken to another living soul.† (source)
- The idea being that if you call out the name long enough and regularly enough and literally from the heart, sooner or later you'll get an answer.† (source)
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meaning too rare to warrant focus:
show 6 examples with meaning too rare to warrant focus
-
I'd almost made it all the way to the elevator when I saw his mom standing in a corner of the Literal Heart.
(source)
literal = actual (not figurative)
- "Don't swear in the Literal Heart of Jesus," Gus said. (source)
- Do you suppose you could find your way to the Literal Heart of Jesus around eight P.M.? (source)
- "Well," I said, nodding vaguely toward the steps that led us out of the Literal Heart of Jesus. (source)
- The cast had rotated a bit down there in the Literal Heart of Jesus. (source)
- When we first got there, I sat in the back of the visitation room, a little room of exposed stone walls off to the side of the sanctuary in the Literal Heart of Jesus church. (source)
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