Meanings
- UKdatedemphatichumorousnot comparablesometimesCertainly, very well.
You jolly well deserved it.
4 more examples
We never had a Christmas in the country before. It was simply ripping. And […] we had games and charades, and hide-and-seek, and Devil in the Dark, which is a game girls pretend to like, and very few do really, and crackers and a Christmas-tree for the village children, and everything you can jolly well think of.
1904, E[dith] Nesbit, “(please specify the page)”, in New Treasure Seekers, London: Ernest Benn, →OCLC"Oh, I shall pull it off. I shall jolly well have to succeed," said Michael light-heartedly; feeling unusually confident.
1920, Eric Leadbitter, Rain Before Seven, page 122Adrian thought it worth while trying out his new slang. […] ‘That’s beastly talk, Thompson. Jolly well take it back or expect a good scragging.’
1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section III, page 26For most main lines, that's one or two extra trains every hour. "We jolly well ought to be able to encompass that on a lot of lines," he suggests.
2022 April 6, Philip Haigh, “Passenger numbers increase... and freight must follow”, in RAIL, number 954, page 51
Cite this entry
jolly well. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/jolly%20well
“jolly well.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/jolly%20well. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “jolly well,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/jolly%20well.
Source: jolly well on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.