What happened to literally
A word that means “not figuratively” is used to mean “figuratively, but strongly”. That looks like decay. It is the ordinary life of an intensifier.
By Dilnoza Yusufova · Linguist
Of all the complaints about English, this one comes up most reliably: that literally has come to mean its opposite, and that the people responsible are young, careless and recent. Two of those three are wrong. The usage is older than the complaint, older than the telephone, and it appears in writers nobody accuses of carelessness.
In short
- Literally as an intensifier is recorded from the eighteenth century, not from the internet.
- Very, really, truly and terribly all made the same journey from meaning to emphasis.
- It is still worth avoiding in formal writing — not because it is wrong, but because readers stop to argue with it.
The word has been doing this for two centuries
The intensifying use is recorded from the eighteenth century and runs through the nineteenth in perfectly respectable company. The best-known instance opens a story in Joyce’s Dubliners: Lily, the caretaker’s daughter, was literally run off her feet — and she was not, of course, because she was still standing when she said it.
This is what intensifiers do
Words that mark degree wear out. A speaker reaches for a strong word to add force, the force fades with repetition, and the word ends up as a general marker of a lot. Linguists call it bleaching, and English has a long row of examples sitting in plain sight.
| Word | What it meant | What it does now |
|---|---|---|
| very | true, real (Old French verrai) | degree — a very old house |
| really | in reality | degree — really cold |
| truly | in accordance with truth | degree — truly awful |
| terribly | so as to cause terror | degree — terribly kind |
| awfully | so as to fill with awe | degree — awfully nice |
| incredibly | impossible to believe | degree — incredibly simple |
| literally | to the letter, not figuratively | degree — literally starving |
Every intensifier in English is a word that used to mean something, worn smooth by people trying to be emphatic.
Very is the cleanest case. It came from Old French verrai, true, and in Middle English a very king meant a true king, a real one. Today it means nothing except to a high degree, and its original sense survives only in fossils like the very thing and in very truth. The journey took about four hundred years and raised no objections that anyone preserved.
- He is a very friend to me.fifteenth century: a true friend
- That is the very book I wanted.the old sense, still alive in a fixed frame
- It was very cold.the modern sense: degree, nothing more
Why this one gets noticed
Three things make literally a target where terribly is not.
It contradicts itself, so the objection is easy to state. It belongs to a register that people are already inclined to correct — the speech of the young. And it joins a small club of English words that mean a thing and its opposite: sanction, which both approves and punishes; dust, which both adds and removes; oversight, which is both supervision and failure to supervise.
What to tell a learner, and what to do yourself
The historical claim and the practical advice point in different directions, and saying both is not a contradiction.
The historical claim: the usage is standard, old, and formed by the same process that produced very and really. A learner who is told it is simply wrong will be puzzled by every novel they read.
The practical advice: in a report, an essay or an email that has to persuade, drop it. Not because it is an error, but because a measurable share of your readers will stop at the word and start composing a reply about it. An adverb that costs you the reader’s attention has failed at the only job it had.
Wrong: The report literally transformed our thinking. correct: The report completely changed our thinking.
In a document, the intensifier invites an argument about the word instead of the point. Any plain adverb does the job without the fight.
Wrong: She was literally the first woman to hold the post. correct: She was the first woman to hold the post.
Here the sentence is already literal. The word adds nothing, which is the most common way it is wasted.
Wrong: He literally exploded with anger. correct: He exploded with anger.
The metaphor is doing the work and the intensifier is standing on top of it. Dropping it makes the sentence stronger, not weaker.
Check yourself
Trust your ear
4 pairs
Four questions about old meanings and new ones.
Which of these words once meant true rather than extremely?
**Very** comes from Old French *verrai*, true. *A very king* meant a true king — and nobody objects to the modern use.
Which use is older in the written record?
The original sense comes first; the intensifying use is recorded from the eighteenth century — old, but not the older of the two.
Which word still means both a thing and its opposite?
**Sanction** both approves and punishes, depending on the sentence. English keeps several of these and survives.
Which sentence would a careful editor leave alone?
The first is the original sense, used accurately. The second is the intensifier, and in edited prose it is the one that gets cut.
Keep this
- The intensifying literally is two and a half centuries old, and the same thing happened to very long before.
- Bleaching is what intensifiers do: strong words wear out and become degree markers.
- In formal writing, avoid it — the objection is about your reader’s attention, not about correctness.
Questions readers ask
So is the complaint simply wrong?
The history is on the side of the usage; the practical advice is on the side of the complaint. Both can be true at once, and a linguist’s job is to say which claim is being made — a claim about the language, or a claim about what works in a particular text.
Will the original meaning disappear?
Unlikely. Context separates the two almost perfectly: nobody has to ask whether a building was literally destroyed. Ambiguity survives where it costs nothing, which is why English tolerates sanction and dust doing the same trick.
What should I teach a learner?
Both senses, and the warning that the second one annoys a specific and vocal set of readers. That is more useful than ruling it out, because they will meet it everywhere.
Sources
- Oxford English Dictionary, entry for literally, sense 1c and its note on the intensive use.
- Bolinger, D. Degree Words. The Hague: Mouton, 1972.
- Joyce, J. Dubliners. London, 1914 — the opening line of “The Dead”.