Definition

Adverb: 1. In a state of wild excitement, ecstasy, or rapture: Describes an action done with intense, often overwhelming joy or happiness. 2. As if in a state of delirium; incoherently: Describes an action done in a frenzied, confused, or irrational manner, often due to fever or illness.

Usage and Examples

• Describing extreme happiness:
  • She laughed deliriously when she heard the wonderful news.
  • The crowd cheered deliriously for their winning team.
• Describing incoherent or frenzied action (often due to fever or mental confusion):
  • The feverish patient muttered deliriously in his sleep.
  • He stumbled around the room, laughing deliriously at nothing.

Advanced Usage

• "deliriously happy/content": A common collocation emphasizing an extreme, almost uncontrollable state of joy or satisfaction.
  • Winning the award made her deliriously happy for weeks.

Variants and Related Words

• Delirious (adjective): Affected with or marked by delirium; ecstatically happy.
  • He was delirious with joy.
  • The high fever left her delirious.
• Delirium (noun): A disturbed state of mind characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence; a state of wild excitement.
  • The patient suffered from delirium.
  • The concert sent the fans into a delirium of excitement.

Synonyms

• Ecstatically: In a very happy and excited state.
• Rapturously: With intense pleasure or joy.
• Frenziedly: In a wildly excited or uncontrolled way.
• Incoherently: In an unclear, confused way that is hard to understand.

Antonyms

• Calmly: In a peaceful, quiet, and untroubled manner.
• Soberly: In a serious, sensible, and solemn manner.
• Coherently: In a logical and consistent way.

Adverb

1. in a delirious manner
   • her answer made him deliriously happy
2. as if in a delirium
   • he was talking deliriously