terriblyter‧ri‧bly /ˈterəbli/ ●●○ adverb 
I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting. The coach was not terribly worried about his team’s poor performance.2very badly SYN severely: The little boy missed his mother terribly.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER DICTIONARIES
- I'm terribly sorry if I mispronounced your name.
- The team played terribly.
- Artists are terribly difficult people for us ordinary mortals to deal with.
- He is not a terribly contented man.
- It is terribly important that this country takes vocational training seriously.
- It looked terribly good after all they had been through.
- It was all so terribly clear.
- Was he somehow playing a terribly cruel trick on her?
Longman Language Activatorextremely
especially written use this when you want to use a stronger word than 'very': · The conference was extremely badly organized.· The fungus is extremely difficult to get rid of.· Regular visits to the doctor are extremely important for pregnant mothers.
as much as it is possible to imagine - use this to emphasize adjectives that already have a strong meaning: absolutely marvellous/wonderful/delicious etc: · We had an absolutely marvellous day.· The costumes were absolutely stunning.absolutely filthy/disgusting/awful etc: · When they came in from the yard, they were absolutely filthy.absolutely terrified/exhausted/delighted/furious etc: · She stood in the middle of the stage looking absolutely terrified.absolutely necessary/essential: · Don't call me unless it's absolutely necessary.
spoken extremely: · Our Internet connection is awfully slow today.· He's been terribly ill for the last two weeks.· The plot is terrifically complicated and difficult to follow.· That box looks awfully heavy - are you sure you don't need any help?
spoken say this when you want to emphasize 'very': · I'm very, very angry with her.· This is a very, very important decision - please give it your full attention.· We've been working on this deal for a very, very long time.
use this when something is so good, so bad, so fast etc that you are surprised by it or you find it hard to believe: · Everyone in the company works incredibly hard.· Their house is incredibly cold - I don't think they heat it at all.· What they did was unbelievably stupid.· The apartment is unbelievably cheap - there must be something wrong with it.
use this to emphasize how unreasonable or stupid something is: · The questions seemed ridiculously easy.· The amount they offered for the car was ridiculously low.
use this especially to emphasize how popular, successful, or powerful someone or something is: · Barry's novels have been hugely successful.· "The Wizard of Oz" remains enormously popular with children.· Davis plays an enormously influential role in city politics.
British use this to emphasize how bad something is, or how sad or unhappy someone is: · You must be dreadfully disappointed!· Dreadfully overcrowded trains and frequent cancellations made commuting an ordeal.
use this to emphasize how unusual, impressive, or surprising something is: · Mills' predictions turned out to be remarkably accurate.· The old documents are remarkably well preserved.· Nadine's daughter has an exceptionally fine singing voice.· The heavy soil of the delta produces exceptionally high yields of rice and millet.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE ENTRY I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting. The coach was not terribly worried about his team’s poor performance.COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES The girl’s parents were bitterly disappointed at the jury’s verdict.
1[+adjective/adverb] especially British English very SYN extremely: I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting. The coach was not terribly worried about his team’s poor performance. (=very boring)
The girl’s parents were bitterly disappointed at the jury’s verdict. (=very embarrassed)· I was deeply embarrassed to see my mother arrive in a very short skirt.
· It was the first time she had been away from home and she was desperately unhappy.
· Harry felt sure that something was terribly wrong.
· From that moment on, everything went horribly wrong for the team.
COLLOCATIONS FROM THE CORPUSADJECTIVE· Emilia had been long sick with pregnancy; she had lost the child; and somewhere she was terribly afraid.· And though she longed to lose herself in the flames, to be consumed and reborn, she was also terribly afraid.· Instead, hesitantly, terribly afraid she was doing the wrong thing, she plucked meanings from the firmament.· Folly felt a fresh wave of desire sweep through her, and was terribly afraid that he would see it too.· He was most terribly afraid of the ferret, but he loved it with all his heart.· He was terribly afraid that at present Lorton was loyal solely to his own interests.· Whether or not we have firmly held beliefs about what happens after death, we can still be terribly afraid.· I was terribly afraid that there was some reason for them other than that they were due to something she had eaten.
· The money side of a clergy family is terribly difficult.· That was the trouble with being like she was: it was terribly difficult sometimes to really know.· Artists are terribly difficult people for us ordinary mortals to deal with.· Making such a plan is, of course, often terribly difficult.· It's terribly difficult to make a call to those sort of islands as they don't have many telephones.· None of them seem to be finding it so terribly difficult to just sit on their brooms.
· It was a fascinating experience but from the climbing point of view the ratios weren't terribly good.· It looked terribly good after all they had been through.· That's terribly good of you.· Julian and I are not terribly good at snooker.· She's terribly good at it, isn't she?
· It must hit you and John terribly hard, being friends of his and so young and all.· The second year you realise that it' s terribly, terribly hard.· It became terribly hard in the winter.· He wanted to do Natural Sciences at Cambridge, worked terribly hard and got in.· It was terribly hard work, even with the boys helping.
· Some terribly important person from the Sûreté - is that right?· You fight for things that are terribly important.· It is terribly important that this country takes vocational training seriously.· It's terribly important they do it properly.· Work hadn't seemed so terribly important until now.· Being ambitious to earn a lot of money may seem terribly important while you're doing it.· That is terribly important because under the council tax 85 percent. of local expenditure will be met centrally.· A.S. I think it's terribly important for people to train.
· Call me old fashioned, but I find this terribly sad.· I found this reaction terribly sad and utterly hilarious, so I consulted the most insightful cosmologist I know.· I think his life was terribly sad.
· She said she was terribly sorry to disturb him.· Rather than write: We are terribly sorry that our representative was abrupt on the telephone last Tuesday.· He made me feel terribly sorry I had ever asked, but also terribly glad I'd been wrong.· We are all terribly sorry and worried about this, as we don't know what has happened.· Silvio's receptionist was always terribly sorry, but il signore was busy.· I am terribly sorry this should have happened and I sincerely hope that we hear from them.
· They were in the prime of their lives and something went terribly wrong.· It was my first inkling that something had gone terribly wrong.· It just went terribly, terribly wrong.· The test having been oversold in the first place, the woman is sure that there is something terribly wrong.· Sadly, things went terribly wrong.· The gamble had worked, when a dozen different things could have gone so terribly wrong.· I can tell from your tone something else is terribly wrong.· That had been their mistake, that was what made Chrissy absolutely certain that something terribly wrong was going on.
VERB· He was terribly disappointed she hadn't flown at him or reacted more strongly.· This is neither shocking nor terribly disappointing.
· He then falls asleep immediately, leaving me feeling terribly frustrated.· But I feel terribly tired and completely lacking in self-confidence.· I feel terribly uncomfortable and. guilty.· I have not felt terribly well; but no matter.· For a second I feel terribly lost.· Ladies collecting jumble for the local church fête always make you feel terribly guilty.· I felt terribly tired and at the same time had the sense that time had never begun and space had never ended.
· They were in the prime of their lives and something went terribly wrong.· It was my first inkling that something had gone terribly wrong.· It just went terribly, terribly wrong.· Sadly, things went terribly wrong.· But the whole area's gone terribly downhill.· And a sense of history gone terribly wrong.· But the experiment had gone terribly wrong.· But, of course, matters went terribly wrong.
· If you don't want to take, he's terribly hurt.
· Looking at the film now, it looks terribly dated.· The proposed satellite interconnection system that I was fighting so hard to stop suddenly looked terribly appealing.· Nancy, still looking terribly upset, left the station, and hurried back to Fagin's house with this news.· It looked terribly good after all they had been through.· From here she looks terribly unlikely.
· All at once he seemed terribly far away.· Stripped of his power to inflict harm on me, he seemed terribly ordinary.· Being ambitious to earn a lot of money may seem terribly important while you're doing it.· Deane didn't seem terribly comfortable to me.· Nobody seemed terribly interested in doing anything just at that moment.
· Now we knew it was artillery, it sounded terribly close.· Trees got taken away to become all sorts of products, each of which sounded terribly exciting to the fir tree.· She never met Chris, but she thought he sounded terribly romantic.
· Piazza Duomo suffered terribly, although the cathedral itself remained largely intact.· But in the meantime, people suffered terribly.· Of course, Cinzia suffered terribly too.· I wanted to suffer terribly and rejoice terribly before I began my climb up the sky.· Chaucer's Criseyde is a dignified and thoughtful widow, who suffers terribly when she leaves Troy.· Instead he and his men suffered terribly from scorching, thirst, and scurvy, from which one of his officers died.· Den suffered terribly from stage fright and had some real moments of crisis which of course never showed from the front.· But the opportunists suffer terribly under these conditions.
I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting. The coach was not terribly worried about his team’s poor performance.2very badly SYN severely: The little boy missed his mother terribly.