literally
lit·er·al·ly/ˈlɪ.tə.ɹə.li/adverb
literally is spelled L-I-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y, 4 syllables: lit·er·al·ly. The wrong spelling people search most is litterally: about 270 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 17 of all searches for the word. Literally is an adverb meaning “Without overstatement or understatement, or false or misleading words”.
How many letters and syllables are in literally?
| Letters | 9: L-I-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4: lit·er·al·ly |
| In writing | 81 times per million words; the 1,302nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 7; the most searched, litterally, about 270 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell literally?
Literally is spelled L-I-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y. 7 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for literally in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is literally?
Literally appears 81 times per million words in written English, the 1,302nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce literally?
- UK /ˈlɪ.tə.ɹə.li/
- UK /ˈlɪ.tɹə.li/
- US /ˈlɪ.tə.ɹə.li/
Literally has 4 syllables, split lit·er·al·ly in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-literally.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Zazollo-literally.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of literally
- more literally comparative
- most literally superlative
- lit.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does literally mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adverb
- 1
Without overstatement or understatement, or false or misleading words.
He's prone to exaggeration, so don't take what he says literally.
- 2
With phrasings that might normally be used or understood as figurative: truly; not figuratively; not as an idiom or metaphor.
When I saw on the news that there would be no school tomorrow because of the snowstorm, I literally jumped for joy, and hit my head on the ceiling fan.
- 3
Draws attention to a pun or other wordplay involving an idiom.
My daughter's pet rabbit had babies, and now we've literally got rabbits coming out of our ears.
- 4
colloquialUsed as a general intensifier or dramatiser, sometimes tending towards a meaningless filler.
I had no idea, so I was literally guessing.
- 5
proscribedUsed as an intensifier with statements or terms that are in fact meant figuratively and not word for word as stated.
He was so surprised, he literally jumped twenty feet in the air.
- 6
colloquialUsed as a generic downtoner: just, merely.
It's not even hard to make–you literally just put it in the microwave for five minutes and it's done.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate literally?
Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of literally: lit., litro.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Literally in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense in a literal manner:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | littéralement, textuellement, texto, mot à mot |
| German | wörtlich, buchstäblich, im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes |
| Portuguese | literalmente |
| Spanish | literalmente, literal, textualmente |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.