English edit

Etymology edit

From prodigious +‎ -ly.

Adverb edit

prodigiously (comparative more prodigiously, superlative most prodigiously)

  1. In a prodigious manner; astonishingly, enormously, impressively, or wonderfully.
    • 1727, [Daniel Defoe], “Of such Tradesmen who by the Necessary Consequences of Their Business are Oblig’d to be Accessary to the Propagation of Vice, and the Encrease of the Wickedness of the Times, and that All the Immorality of the Age is Not Occasion’d by the Ale-houses and the Taverns”, in The Compleat English Tradesman. [], volume II, London: [] Charles Rivington [], →OCLC, part II, pages 163–163:
      [T]he Mercers encreaſing prodigiouſly vvent back into the City; there like Bees unhiv'd they hover about a vvhile, not knovving vvhere to fix; but at laſt, as if they vvould come back to the old Hive in Pater-noſter Rovv, but could not be admitted, the ſvvarm ſettled on Lu[d]gate-hill.
    • 1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XXXIV, in Sense and Sensibility [], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: [] C[harles] Roworth, [], and published by T[homas] Egerton, [], →OCLC:
      The Dashwoods were so prodigiously delighted with the Middletons, that, though not much in the habit of giving any thing, they determined to give them—a dinner; []
    • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter XV, in The History of Pendennis. [], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, [], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
      Pendennis the elder, who like a real man of the world had a proper and constant dread of the opinion of his neighbour, was prodigiously annoyed by the absurd little tempest which was blowing in Chatteris, and tossing about Master Pen’s reputation.