terribly

adverb

ter·​ri·​bly ˈter-ə-blē 

ˈte-rə-

1

: to an extreme degree : very : extremely

became terribly ill

had a terribly nice time

got terribly excited

I had tried a little radio before the war and hadn't been terribly impressed with it at the time.

—Walter Cronkite

He and Jimmy got into a quarrel about the girl's being fired, and it got terribly bitter.

—Virginia Foster Durr

2

: in a terrible way : very badly, poorly, or unpleasantly

behaving terribly

They were treated terribly.

This can be regarded as a somewhat progressive attitude because it is true that women were terribly abused in the Roman world.

—Norman F. Cantor

And then the next year I played terribly and finished close to last.

—Gene Littler

3

: very much

I miss you terribly.

Synonyms

• achingly
• almighty
• archly
• awful
• awfully
• badly
• beastly
• blisteringly
• bone
• colossally
• corking
• cracking
• damn
• damned
• dang
• deadly
• desperately
• eminently
• enormously
• especially
• ever
• exceedingly
• exceeding
• extra
• extremely
• fabulously
• fantastically
• far
• fiercely
• filthy
• frightfully
• full
• greatly
• heavily
• highly
• hugely
• immensely
• incredibly
• intensely
• jolly
• majorly
• mightily
• mighty
• monstrous [chiefly dialect]
• mortally
• most
• much
• particularly
• passing
• rattling
• real
• really
• right
• roaring
• roaringly
• seriously
• severely
• so
• sore
• sorely
• spanking
• specially
• stinking
• such
• super
• supremely
• surpassingly
• that
• thumping
• too
• unco
• uncommonly
• vastly
• very
• vitally
• way
• whacking
• wicked
• wildly

Examples of terribly in a Sentence

I'm terribly sorry to bother you

Recent Examples on the Web

Listen to this article 2 min Boston Celtics legend Paul Pierce will be getting his steps in after his Game 2 Celtics-Knicks prediction ended terribly for him. —Scott Thompson, FOXNews.com, 8 May 2025

The Celtics are doing that and shooting terribly, following up a 25 percent 3-point shooting performance in Game 1 with a 25 percent performance in Game 2. —Jared Weiss, New York Times, 8 May 2025

Daily FaceTime calls were a lifeline, but the girls missed him terribly. —Seth Carnell, USA Today, 6 May 2025

But the nature of all idioms is that their meaning cannot be deduced from their components; the phrase kicked the bucket does not put the English speaker in the mind of an actual bucket, just as the word death does not remind him terribly of the letter D. —Andrea Long Chu, Vulture, 6 May 2025

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for terribly

• unbearably