Definition

1. Adjective:

   • Resembling or suggestive of death: Having the appearance or characteristics associated with death, such as extreme paleness, stillness, or coldness.
   • Causing or capable of causing death; fatal: Extremely harmful or destructive, with the potential to be lethal.

2. Adverb:

   • To an extreme degree that resembles death; extremely: Used to intensify an adjective, often describing a quality (like paleness, silence, or coldness) to a degree that is reminiscent of death.

Usage Examples

• Adjective:
  • A deathly silence fell over the room after the announcement. (The silence was profound and eerie, like that of death.)
  • The poison had a deathly effect on the animal. (The effect was fatal.)
• Adverb:
  • She was deathly afraid of spiders. (She was extremely afraid.)
  • His face turned deathly pale when he heard the news. (His face became extremely pale, like that of a dead person.)

Advanced Usage

• "deathly ill": extremely ill, to the point of being near death.
  • After the diagnosis, he became deathly ill.
• "deathly quiet/silent": profoundly and unnervingly quiet.
  • The forest was deathly quiet at night.

Variants and Related Words

• Deadly (adj/adv): Can be similar in meaning to "deathly" when meaning "fatal" or "extremely," but "deadly" is more commonly used for things that cause death (e.g., a deadly virus) or as an intensifier (e.g., deadly serious). "Deathly" more strongly emphasizes the to death.
• Deathlike (adj): Very similar to the adjective sense of "deathly," meaning resembling death.

Synonyms

• Adjective (resembling death): Cadaverous, pallid, ghostly.
• Adjective (fatal): Lethal, mortal, fatal.
• Adverb: Extremely, exceedingly, terribly.

Related Phrases

• "deathly hush": a complete and eerie silence.
  • A deathly hush descended on the courtroom.
• "deathly cold": extremely cold, chilling to the bone.
  • The water was deathly cold.

Notes on Usage

• "Deathly" as an adverb is often used for dramatic or literary effect to emphasize an extreme state that evokes the image of death. It is less common in casual conversation than synonyms like "extremely."
• The adjective form often describes an atmosphere, appearance, or effect.

Adjective

1. causing or capable of causing death
   • a fatal accident
   • a deadly enemy
   • mortal combat
   • a mortal illness
2. having the physical appearance of death
   • a deathly pallor

Adverb

1. to a degree resembling death
   • he was deathly pale