What's the difference between literally and really?

Literally


Definition:

  • (adv.) According to the primary and natural import of words; not figuratively; as, a man and his wife can not be literally one flesh.
  • (adv.) With close adherence to words; word by word.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) They are just literally lying.” In August Microsoft severed its ties, saying Alec’s stance on climate change and several other issues “conflicted directly with Microsoft’s values”.
  • (2) Estimated fluid consumption dropped from 10 liters to 4 liters daily and incidents of hyponatremia decreased by 62%.
  • (3) Resting plasma epinephrine and norepinephrine levels were 13.1 and 2.1 nmol liter-1 for the marine toad (Bufo marinus).
  • (4) And we literally had hundreds of thousands of them."
  • (5) Standard additions are unnecessary; Pt concentrations are read from a calibration chart of peak heights, which is linear up to 1.6 mg per liter.
  • (6) Communication issues in obtaining organ donation consent were examined, with particular focus on what are literally life-and-death decisions.
  • (7) It could still be terrorism but it looks as if the aircraft went out of control because the controls were literally burning up.
  • (8) A novel vector was employed which permits rapid and highly efficient cleavage of the GST fusion protein yielding 10 mg of purified PurH product per liter of bacterial culture.
  • (9) You literally never see that at political rallies, though obviously at Tea Party ones they are there all the time."
  • (10) An empirical rate expression was developed from experimental data which led to a prediction that the natural rate of oxidation in the ocean is about 0.023 micromoles of As(III) per liter each year.
  • (11) A technology for preparation of purified concentrates of rabies virus has been developed permitting to use simultaneously dozens of liters of tissue culture virus-containing fluid for the preparation of a concentrate.
  • (12) The maximum effect was obtained with 10(-7) molar gibberellic acid, whereas concentrations greater than 5 x 10(-7) mole per liter were inhibitory.
  • (13) Years ahead of its time, it saw each song presented theatrically, the musicians concealed in the wings (although Bowie said that they kept creeping on to the stage, literally unable to resist the spotlight) and with Bowie performing on a cherry-picker and on a giant hand, both of which kept breaking down.
  • (14) Some women attended the protest wearing jeans and T-shirts, while others took the mission of reclaiming the word "slut" – one of the stated objectives of the movement – more literally and turned out in overtly provocative fishnets and stilettos.
  • (15) But nobody got the reference and "the next day it was literally on CNN".
  • (16) 1.57pm BST Lap 36: Punchy stuff from Jules Bianchi up to 13th, literally bumping his way through Kobayashi on the inside.
  • (17) The majority of children came from low socio-economic homes (61%) with mostly illiterate or semi-literate mothers.
  • (18) As compared with the normoglycemic patients, the patients with hypoglycemia had elevated median plasma concentrations of glucagon (44 vs. 11 pmol per liter; P = 0.001), epinephrine (3400 vs. 1500 pmol per liter; P = 0.012), norepinephrine (7500 vs. 2900 pmol per liter; P = 0.002), and lactate (3.5 vs. 2.1 mmol per liter; P = 0.020) and similar alanine and beta-hydroxybutyrate concentrations.
  • (19) Finally, poliovirus experimentally seeded in 20 liters of tape water was recovered from Johns-Manville D79-Johns-Manville D39 or Johns-Manville D79-Filterite 0.45 micron 142-mm filter combinations was a efficiencies of 86 and 85%, respectively.
  • (20) Results concerning existence and uniqueness of equilibria, stability of the equilibria, and boundedness of solutions suggest that "compensatory" systems might not be compensatory in the literal sense.

Really


Definition:

  • (adv.) Royally.
  • (adv.) In a real manner; with or in reality; actually; in truth.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Jonker kept sticking his nose in the corner and not really cooperating, but then came a moment of stillness.
  • (2) I said: ‘Apologies for doing this publicly, but I did try to get a meeting with you, and I couldn’t even get a reply.’ And then I had a massive go at him – about everything really, from poverty to uni fees to NHS waiting times.” She giggles again.
  • (3) The latest story will show Bridget more "grown up" but she is "never going to change really".
  • (4) I hope I can play a major part in really highlighting the need for far more extensive family violence training within all organisations that deal with women and children, including the police and the department of human services,” Batty said.
  • (5) But what they take for a witticism might very well be true; most of Ellis's novels tell more or less the same story, about the same alienated ennui, and maybe they really are nothing more than the fictionalised diaries of an unremarkably unhappy man.
  • (6) I’ve never really had that work versus life thing; it’s all part of the same canvas.
  • (7) But I suppose really we’ve just got to look to next Sunday.
  • (8) Still, even as unknowable as this decision may be for him, as any decision is, really, he is far more qualified to understand his desires and goals that would inform that decision than anyone else is.
  • (9) But do you know the thing that really bites?” he pointed to his home, which was not visible behind an overgrown hedge.
  • (10) If Del Bosque really want to win this World Cup thingymebob, then he has got to tell Iker Casillas that the jig is up, correct?
  • (11) He was really an English public schoolboy, but I welcome the idea of people who are in some ways not Scottish, yet are committed to Scotland.
  • (12) "It is really a time for cooperation and unity," he said, adding that recent events had shown the need for Iraqis – Sunni, Shia and Kurds – to work together.
  • (13) Clare Gills, an American journalist and friend of Foley, wrote in 2013: “He is always striving to get to the next place, to get closer to what is really happening, and to understand what moves the people he’s speaking with.
  • (14) Despite a few initial concerns about the technology and how it would fit into their daily routines, staff really see the benefit and find it rewarding to see the messages and be able to respond straight away.
  • (15) Does parliamentary privilege really mean that the four accused should not face trial?
  • (16) It's that he habitually abuses his position by lobbying ministers at all; I've heard from former ministers who were astonished by the speed with which their first missive from Charles arrived, opening with the phrase: "It really is appalling".
  • (17) It took years of prep work to make this sort of Übermensch thing socially acceptable, let alone hot – lots of “legalize it!” and “you are economic supermen!” appeals to the balled-and-entitled toddler-fists of the sociopathic libertechian madding crowd to really get mechanized mass-death neo-fascism taken mainstream .
  • (18) "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people," said Zuckerberg in 2010 during an intense few months as controversy raged over the complexity of Facebook's privacy settings.
  • (19) I'm really glad Voiceover told me they were the Hairy Bikers or I wouldn't have realised.
  • (20) Roberts can't really explain why Wu Lyf's lyrics are full of neo-biblical imagery – all blood and fire and crowns – nor why one of their main insignia is a cross, but he does admit that he got suspended from secondary school for putting a picture of Ho Chi Minh's face on Christ's body.