Literally and figuratively are two terms that often cause confusion when they are used. People often mix literally and figuratively up, resulting in some interesting language errors. Learning how to use the terms, literally and figuratively, correctly will certainly make your communications clearer.

Essentially literally and figuratively are words opposite to each other. Literally is often used to increase the intensity of an expression without exaggerating. A related term might be "truly," meaning that the expression is a true one. Take for example the following sentence:

"Without help from the Red Cross, we were literally going to starve within a few days."

The speaker in the above sentence really means that “we” were going to starve. This is not meant to be exaggeration. Instead it helps make the sentence more intense by describing the desperate situation in which the speaker, and the rest of the group that makes up the “we” in the sentence, were involved. When we use the term literal, we tend to mean taken at the value of the word. A literal interpretation of the Bible means that people believe the Creation story and all other stories in the bible as having occurred as written. When the Bible is read figuratively, it means people read some of the work as symbolic instead of exact representations of what occurred in the past.

This is one of the reasons that literally and figuratively get mixed up. Literal and literally connect to literature. In general when we think of literature, we think of flights of fancy or fiction. So people may use literally to mean that they are being metaphoric or symbolic instead of telling the exact truth.

The distinctions between literally and figuratively get even more confusing, when you start using the word figuratively. We know that figurative language may be metaphor, simile, symbols or a variety of other types. When we say figuratively, we may that we are exaggerating, not so much to lie, but to give the language we use greater depth and interest. What makes the terms confusing is the literature often contains figurative language, therefore literally seems like the right word to use, even though it isn’t.

In our use of literally and figuratively we can say that the former is a modifier to intensify, while the latter is a modifier to deintensify. Let’s look at our sentence again when used with the word figuratively:

"Without help from the Red Cross, we were going to starve within a few days, at least figuratively."

Here the speaker means his group was not really going to starve, though they were very hungry. Speaking figuratively can be exaggerating too, though no one takes it seriously. A child might say, “I’m starving!” an example of figurative language. The child is not literally starving, but is merely hungry. If the child says, “I’m literally starving!” you should correct him or her and suggest that “figuratively starving” would be closer to the truth.

Another way that literally and figuratively can be confused is when a person is about to use a figure of speech. Again confusion arises from the connection between literally and literature. A person might say:

"When I heard my sister crying, I literally flew down the hill to see what was wrong.."

Actually the person did no such thing, and is using metaphoric language to increase intensity. Unless the speaker is Superman, or happens to be flying a plane, he did not “fly” down the hill, he ran down the hill quickly. It isn’t necessary to add figuratively to imply the use of figurative language. Instead, just omit the “literally to make the sentence correct.

Literally and figuratively in word use can then be defined as "truly" and "not really," respectively. People often attach figuratively at the end of the sentence to dampen down exaggerated language. On the other hand, when literally is used properly it intensifies a situation, and means the speaker is not speaking metaphorically or indulging in a tall tale.