DREADFULLY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does dreadfully mean? 

• DREADFULLY (adverb)
  The adverb DREADFULLY has 2 senses:

1. of a dreadful kind

2. in a dreadful manner

  Familiarity information: DREADFULLY used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DREADFULLY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of a dreadful kind

Synonyms:

awfully; dreadfully; horribly

Context example:

there was a dreadfully bloody accident on the road this morning

Pertainym:

dreadful (causing fear or dread or terror)

Sense 2

Meaning:

In a dreadful manner

Synonyms:

dismally; dreadfully

Context example:

as he looks at the mess he has left behind he must wonder how the Brits so often managed to succeed in the kind of situation where he has so dismally failed

Pertainym:

dreadful (exceptionally bad or displeasing)

 Context examples 

"People don't have fortunes left them in that style nowadays, men have to work and women marry for money. It's a dreadfully unjust world," said Meg bitterly.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

John gambles dreadfully, and always loses—poor boy!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“If it didn’t tangle so dreadfully,” she laughed.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Miss Bennet paused a little, and then replied, “Surely there can be no occasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your opinion?”

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

You are so different, so dreadfully calm. You frighten me.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I grew dreadfully afraid, and the horses shared my fear.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But she preyed upon our minds dreadfully.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“The police are already upstairs. It has shaken me most dreadfully.”

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

Her husband had been extravagant; and at his death, about two years before, had left his affairs dreadfully involved.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well, and it is considered as a remarkably early season, so that perhaps I may sail sooner than I expected.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)