Library / English Dictionary

PERFECTLY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (adverb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Completely and without qualification; used informally as intensifiers

Example:

dead right

Synonyms:

absolutely; dead; perfectly; utterly

Classified under:

Adverbs

Pertainym:

perfect (without qualification; used informally as (often pejorative) intensifiers)

Sense 2

Meaning:

In a perfect or faultless way

Example:

solved the problem perfectly

Classified under:

Adverbs

Antonym:

imperfectly (in an imperfect or faulty way)

Pertainym:

perfect (being complete of its kind and without defect or blemish)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Lady Russell was now perfectly decided in her opinion of Mr Elliot.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

An unusual—to me—a perfectly new character I suspected was yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I’ll be perfectly frank with you, and if it suits you it will suit me very well.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I could now speak the language tolerably well, and perfectly understood every word, that was spoken to me.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Her niece thought it perfectly reasonable.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I must tell you that he is a perfectly impossible person—absolutely impossible.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The folds exist because the fractures in Enceladus' surface are more wavy than perfectly straight.

(Saturn Moon's Activity Could Be 'Curtain Eruptions', NASA)

She perfectly remembered everything that had passed in conversation between Wickham and herself, in their first evening at Mr. Phillips's.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

You don’t need to have perfectly clean water for handwashing… if you use soap, hands can still effectively be cleaned.

(Slightly dirty water ‘still ok’ against coronavirus, SciDev.Net)

And you feel well? perfectly well?

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)