[dragonwriter]

> But the dictionary didn't make a mistake. The word "literally" means what most people think, as well as its opposite.

The figurative use of "literal" does not mean the opposite of the literal use (it doesn't mean "not literally (in its literal sense)", it means "as if literally (in its literal sense)".)

[lutusp]

Well, "figuratively" is an antonym for "literally", and this specific use of literally means figuratively. So they're opposite meanings.

http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/literallygloss.htm

Quote: "For more than a hundred years, critics have remarked on the incoherency of using literally in a way that suggests the exact opposite of its primary sense of 'in a manner that accords with the literal sense of the words.'"

[dragonwriter]

> Well, "figuratively" is an antonym for "literally", and this specific use of literally means figuratively.

No, it doesn't. Its an intensifier that is used when the fact that the use is figurative is (assumed by the speaker/writer) to be clear from context. The use of "literally" is not a means of communicating the fact that the modified term is being used figuratively, it is used to convey the idea that the experience represented by the clearly-figurative use has unusual proximity to the experience that would occur were the modified term literally applicable.

Yes, lots of people say it means the exact opposite, but it doesn't, and you can't understand what people are saying when they use it if you think it does.