Bitterly

//ˈbɪtəɹli// adv

adv ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    In a bitter manner.

    "Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair."

  2. 2
    Extremely

    "On a bitterly cold evening at Wembley, the Lionesses knew only victory would be enough to keep alive Team GB's hopes of competing in Paris."

Adverb
  1. 1
    with bitterness; in a resentful manner wordnet
  2. 2
    indicating something hard to accept wordnet
  3. 3
    extremely and sharply wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bitinglyabominablyacerbicallyacerblyacidlyacridly

Example

More examples

"I can't abide hearing you cry so bitterly."

Etymology

From Middle English bitterli, biterli, biterliche, from Old English biterlīċe, bitterlīċe (“bitterly”), equivalent to bitter + -ly. Cognate with German Low German bitterlik (“bitterly”), German bitterlich (“bitterly”), Swedish bitterligen (“bitterly”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.