All 9 Uses of
literally
in
The Angel Experiment
- Here, we could live free. I mean literally free, as in, not in cages.
p. 3.6 *literally = actually (not figuratively; not an exaggeration)
- She was with bloodthirsty man-wolf mutants eager for her blood who would turn her over to despicable lab geeks who wanted to take her apart. Literally.
p. 9.8
- One had rough, scaly skin—literally scaly, like a fish, but just in patches, not all over.
p. 14.4
- It gets so tiring, this strong-picking-on-the-weak stuff. It was the story of my life—literally—and it seemed to be a big part of the outside world too.
p. 22.3
- He literally licked his chops and rubbed his huge, hairy hands together, as if he'd learned how to be a bad guy from cartoons.
p. 37.2
- The Erasers poked their fingers through our bars, trying to scratch us, taunting, literally rattling our cages.
p. 64.8
- I literally gnashed my teeth.
p. 102.8
- We were surrounded by Erasers, more Erasers than I'd ever seen before. Literally hundreds and hundreds of them.
p. 117.2
- "You're dead meat," Ari growled. I mean that literally.
p. 131.6
Definitions:
-
(1)
(literally as in: literally--not figuratively) actually true using the basic meaning of the words (not an exaggeration, metaphor, or other type of figurative speech)
-
(2)
(literally as in: literally at death's door) an intensifier (to intensify what is said -- especially a metaphor)Since literally can mean actually true, but can also be used to intensify a metaphor, the reader has to use context to know what the word means.
For example, if you read "She stabbed him in the back," you would probably assume she betrayed him. But if you read it in a murder mystery where the victim was stabbed, you might assume you were being told that she actually stabbed him.
Because confusion can arise from this kind of usage, many authorities discourage using literally to intensify a metaphor--especially in formal usage. -
(3)
(literal as in: a literal translation) word for word
-
(4)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Less common and more specific meanings of literal include:- an earlier or original meaning of a word -- as in "In Japanese the literal meaning of ronin was a 'samurai without a master,' but it is now used to describe a student who did not pass the entrance exam and is without a school."
- lacking imagination -- as in "She has a literal mind."
- a fixed or hard-coded value in a computer program -- as in "Find every instance of the literal in the source code."
- related to letters -- as in "In algebra we use literal notation as when 'x' represents a value."