Absolutely means completely, or works as an emphatic yes. Absolutely right, absolutely not, absolutely!
As an intensifier it goes with words that are already extreme — absolutely furious, absolutely enormous — and sounds wrong with ordinary ones. On its own it means yes with feeling, and absolutely not is the emphatic refusal. Note that absolutely is used far more in British speech than its literal meaning warrants; and that absolute means free from any condition, which is where the force comes from.
1adverbabsolutelyCompletely.~98%
“The food at the wedding was absolutely delicious.”
2adverbyesYes, emphatically.~2%
“"Would you like to come with us?" "Absolutely, I'd love to!"”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 6 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
absolutely is an intensifier.
Absolute plus -ly, from Latin absolutus, released or complete — ab plus solvere, to loosen. Absolve, solve and dissolve come from the same loosening.
Middle English
absolutly
English, today
absolutely
From late Middle English absolutly, equivalent to absolute + -ly. 1425.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA