Dearly

Dearly can only be used as an adverb and normally collocates with the verbs love / like and in this sense means a lot or very much:

• He's such a nice man. I love him dearly.
• I would dearly like / love to be in your shoes and to have the whole summer free to travel around Europe.

Common adjectives ending in -ly There are not very many, but other common adjectives apart from costly ending in -ly include: friendly, lively, lovely, silly, ugly, unlikely: It was a lively party and there were lots of very friendly people there. He was really quite ugly and unlikely to succeed in the blind date competition.

Adverbs formed by adding -ly

As you no doubt know, most adverbs are formed by adding -ly to the adjective:

• He is a slow and careful driver.
  He drives slowly and carefully.
• I'm going to give a house a thorough clean.
  I'm going to thoroughly clean the house.

But note that we cannot form adverbs in this way when the adjective ends in -ly. We cannot say: friendlily or uglily or sillily. We have to find some other way of modifying the verb, e.g.:

• They greeted us in a very friendly / silly manner.

Adjective and adverb with the same form A number of adverbs have the same form as adjectives. The most common include: hard, fast, straight, early: I know he has a fast car, but he doesn't need to drive so fast. It's hard work, but if you work hard and really concentrate, you'll finish it by bedtime. I caught the early bus to be sure of arriving early. The Aurelian Way is a very straight Roman road which goes straight from Rome to Pisa.

Adverbs with two forms Some adverbs have two forms. Sometimes there is a difference in meaning. Sometimes there is not very much difference. Compare the following: I haven't seen very much of you lately (lately = recently). You always seem to come home late from work.(late = arriving after the expected time) Mary can jump really high on the trampoline.(high = vertical distance) Yesterday she jumped right off it. It was highly amusing. (highly = very) Alfonso can eat free in the restaurant where he works. (free = without paying) You can speak freely. Nobody can hear us. (freely = without feeling restricted) Can you please be waiting for me outside at nine o' clock sharp? (sharp = punctually) I thought she spoke to him rather sharply. (sharply                  = in a harsh tone) Don't talk so loud. Everybody in the room can hear you. (loud = informal usage) Jonathan spoke loudly and convincingly about the advantages of leasing rather than buying cars. (loudly = more formal usage)