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perfectly

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From perfect +‎ -ly.

Pronunciation

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Adverb

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perfectly (comparative more perfectly, superlative most perfectly)

  1. With perfection.
    They completed the first series perfectly.
  2. Wholly, completely, totally.
    Their performance was perfectly fine.
    • 1687, John Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, page 6:
      The Gentiles would not perfectly relinquish all their Idols; so, they were persuaded to turne the Image of Jupiter with his thunderbolt to Christus crucifixus, and Venus and Cupid to the Madonna and her Babe.
    • 1899, Knut Hamsun, “Part III”, in George Egerton [pseudonym; Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright], transl., Hunger [], London: Leonard Smithers and Co [], →OCLC, page 168:
      I was perfectly stunned. I sat and moistened my lips a little, but otherwise made no effort to do anything: my chest was in a pitiful state.
    • 2011 November 12, “International friendly: England 1 – 0 Spain”, in BBC Sport[1]:
      James Milner's angled free-kick was headed on to the post by the tireless [Darren] Bent and [Frank] Lampard the opportunist was perfectly placed to stoop and head in from virtually on the goal-line.
    • 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 4:
      The route taken does not have to be a perfectly straight line, just so long as it is linear and is followed consistently for each transect taken.

Derived terms

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Collocations

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Some adjectives commonly collocating with perfectly:

  • perfectly willing
  • perfectly safe
  • perfectly well
  • perfectly healthy
  • perfectly obvious
  • perfectly able
  • perfectly capable
  • perfectly clear
  • perfectly normal
  • perfectly understandable

Translations

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References

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  1. ^ Hall, Joseph Sargent (1942 March 2) “1. The Vowel Sounds of Stressed Syllables”, in The Phonetics of Great Smoky Mountain Speech (American Speech: Reprints and Monographs; 4), New York: King's Crown Press, →DOI, →ISBN, § 12, page 42.