Utterly means completely — all the way, with nothing left over. Utterly exhausted after a night flight; an utterly ruined cake, black on top and raw in the middle.
It goes with extremes and not with middles. You can be utterly convinced, utterly alone, utterly ridiculous, utterly wrong — but nobody is utterly tall, because tall has degrees and utterly wants the end of the scale. It leans towards the bad: most of what people call utterly is a failure, a disaster or an exhaustion, though utterly delighted is real English too. Its adjective is utter, which stands only in front of a noun — utter nonsense, utter chaos, an utter mess — and never after the verb. Do not mix it up with the verb utter, to say something aloud; that is a different job for the same small word.
1adverbutterlyCompletely; to the fullest possible degree.
“The plan failed utterly.”
synonyms: completely, absolutely, totally, thoroughly
Also accepted in games: completely
Proto-Indo-European
*úd
Old English
ūtera — exterior, outer
Middle English
outre
English
utter
English, today
utterly
Built from
From utter + -ly. utter The adjective is derived from Middle English outre, utter, uttre (“situated on the outside of, exterior”), from Old English ūtera (“exterior, outer”) literally “more out”, the comparative form of ūt (“out”). outer. The noun is derived from the adjective.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA