"in the worst way" meaning in All languages combined

See in the worst way on Wiktionary

Adverb [English]

Audio: En-au-in the worst way.ogg Forms: form only [superlative]
Head templates: {{en-adv|suponly=1}} in the worst way (superlative form only)
  1. (chiefly US and Canada, idiomatic) Urgently; desperately; to an extreme degree. Tags: Canada, US, idiomatic
    Sense id: en-in_the_worst_way-en-adv-LjRBv4Kk Categories (other): American English, Canadian English
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see in, the, worst, way. Synonyms: something awful
    Sense id: en-in_the_worst_way-en-adv-XnkGyguR Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 40 60 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 13 87 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 10 90
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        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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              24,
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          "text": "I need a drink of water in the worst way.",
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          "ref": "2008 March 17, Kady O'Malley, “Wake me up when it’s — what’s the opposite of ‘over’?”, in Macleans, Canada, retrieved 27 Dec 2016:",
          "text": "Man, I need a life in the worst way.",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "2010 February 11, T. Coraghessan Boyle, “Excerpt: Wild Child”, in New York Times, retrieved 27 Dec 2016:",
          "text": "I wanted this to work in the worst way because my reputation was on the line here. . . .",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "2012 May 25, Hunter Felt, “NBA playoffs preview”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 27 Dec 2016:",
          "text": "Stern as well as assorted television executives needed a game seven in the worst way, and \"the worst way\" might be how they're getting one.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
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        "Urgently; desperately; to an extreme degree."
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        "(chiefly US and Canada, idiomatic) Urgently; desperately; to an extreme degree."
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          "ref": "2008 March 17, Kady O'Malley, “Wake me up when it’s — what’s the opposite of ‘over’?”, in Macleans, Canada, retrieved 27 Dec 2016:",
          "text": "Man, I need a life in the worst way.",
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          "ref": "2010 February 11, T. Coraghessan Boyle, “Excerpt: Wild Child”, in New York Times, retrieved 27 Dec 2016:",
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          "text": "Stern as well as assorted television executives needed a game seven in the worst way, and \"the worst way\" might be how they're getting one.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "Urgently; desperately; to an extreme degree."
      ],
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          "desperate",
          "desperate"
        ],
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(chiefly US and Canada, idiomatic) Urgently; desperately; to an extreme degree."
      ],
      "tags": [
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        "idiomatic"
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      "word": "something awful"
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  ],
  "word": "in the worst way"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-02 using wiktextract (6fdc867 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.