different between really vs livingly

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English really, realy, rialliche, equivalent to real +? -ly.

Alternative forms

• real-ly
• reälly

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /????l?/, /????li/, /????l?/, /????li/
• (US) IPA^(key): /???li/, /??ili/, /??i.?li/
• Hyphenation: re?al?ly
• Rhymes: -i?li

Adverb

really (comparative more really, superlative most really)

1. (literally) In a way or manner that is real, not unreal.
   • 1751, John Roche, Moravian Heresy, page 168:

     We are to believe that by an extraordinary Conception by Means of the holy Ghost he in an extraordinary MANNER, (unknown to us) really assumed Flesh, and was by her nourished in the Womb and in due Time born in a natural Manner, and that whilst on Earth he was really hungry, and dry, and eat and drank as really as other Men, without, any Deception of Sight in us or Delusion whatsoever.

   • 1878, Jonathan Baldwin Turner, Christ's Words as Related to Science,..., page 52:

     If we take the phenomenal world as it strikes our senses, in all its varied and wonderful powers and aspects; as the mere symbol of the Divine Presence and power, that is, according to Christ, ever in, through, and over all, as really as are causal light, heat and gravity, or as really as our own life and souls pervade every atom of our bodies, [...]

   • 1975, Robin H. S. Boyd, An introduction to Indian Christian theology, page 48:

     Thus Brahman must be described as ‘really real’, while a rope, or a person, or God Himself, is ‘unreally real’. And it is only the Vedantin who can distinguish the real from the unreal, for to others all seems real.

2. (modal) Actually; in fact; in reality.

3. (informal, as an intensifier) Very (modifying an adjective); very much (modifying a verb).
   • There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs; […].

Alternative forms

• (in a way or manner that is real, not unreal): real-ly

Usage notes

• Like its synonyms, really is, in practice, often used to preface an opinion, rather than a fact. (See also usage notes for actually.)

Increasingly people are recognising what's really important is having children.

Synonyms

• (actually): actually, in fact, indeed, truly; see also Thesaurus:actually
• (colloquial, as an intensifier): so

Translations

Interjection

really

1. Indicating surprise at, or requesting confirmation of, some new information; to express skepticism.

   A: He won the Nobel Prize yesterday.

   B: Really?

2. (colloquial, sarcastic, typically exaggerated question.) Indicating that what was just said was obvious and unnecessary; contrived incredulity

   A: I've just been reading Shakespeare - he's one of the best authors like, ever!

   B: Really.

3. (colloquial, chiefly US) Indicating affirmation, agreement.

   A: That girl talks about herself way too much.

   B: Really. She's a nightmare.

4. Indicating displeasure at another person's behaviour or statement.

   Well, really! How rude.

Synonyms

• (contrived incredulity, or in ironic / sarcastic sense): you don't say, no kidding, oh really, no really

Translations

References

Etymology 2

re- +? ally

Verb

really (third-person singular simple present reallies, present participle reallying, simple past and past participle reallied)

1. Alternative form of re-ally
   • 1917, German American Annals, page 69:

     She wished since long to die and to be reallied with her children in heaven.

   • 1997, Warren F. Kuehl, Lynne Dunn, Keeping the Covenant: American Internationalists and the League of Nations, 1920-1939 (Kent State University Press, ?ISBN), page 19:

     Following the election, those who had publicly opposed Harding hastened to really themselves with Republicans who had remained in the party.

Anagrams

• rallye, y'all're, yaller

English

Etymology

From living +? -ly

Adverb

livingly (comparative more livingly, superlative most livingly)

1. In actual living experience, vitally, really.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, ch. 103—Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton:

     Only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out.

   • 1887, Julian Hawthorne, "Literature for Children" in Confessions and Criticisms:

     If we believed—if the great mass of people known as the civilized world did actually and livingly believe—that there was really anything beyond or above the physical order of nature, our children's literature, wrongly so called, would not be what it is.

   • 1922, D. H. Lawrence, Fantasia of the Unconscious, ch. 14:

     A man very rarely has an image of a person with whom he is livingly, vitally connected.

2. Realistically; as if experienced in life or as if alive.
   • 1882, Charles Kingsley, "North Devon" in Prose Idylls, New and Old (originally published in Fraser's Magazine, July, 1849):

     It was so strange, to have that gay Italian bay, with all its memories . . . and those great old heroes, with their awful deeds for good and evil, all brought so suddenly and livingly before me.

   • c. 1889, Samuel Butler, "How To Make the Best of Life" in Essays on Life, Art and Science:

     Take an extreme case. A group of people are photographed by Edison's new process—say Titiens, Trebelli, and Jenny Lind, with any two of the finest men singers the age has known—let them be photographed incessantly for half an hour while they perform a scene in "Lohengrin"; let all be done stereoscopically. Let them be phonographed at the same time so that their minutest shades of intonation are preserved, let the slides be coloured by a competent artist, and then let the scene be called suddenly into sight and sound, say a hundred years hence. Are those people dead or alive? Dead to themselves they are, but while they live so powerfully and so livingly in us, which is the greater paradox—to say that they are alive or that they are dead?

   • 1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, Across The Plains, ch. 9:

     You should have heard him speak of what he loved. . . . Here was a piece of experience solidly and livingly built up in words, here was a story created.

Further reading

• Oxford English Dictionary 2nd ed. (1989)
• livingly at OneLook Dictionary Search