terminally online
- adjective
- Slang
:
conectado de forma excesiva
- Sometimes being terminally online makes it hard to relate to people offline.
Examples
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She is terminally online and often misses out on real-life events.
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Their terminally online perspective can make minor online debates seem extremely important.
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My friend is so terminally online that he knows every internet meme before I do.
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Are you terminally online these days?
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She spends so much time scrolling through social media that her friends describe her as terminally online.
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His views on current events have been shaped by his terminally online lifestyle, making him less in touch with reality.
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After experiencing burnout from constant online engagement, she realized she had become terminally online.
Synonyms
To spend too much time on the internet and feel tired or disconnected
How Online
- Slang
- Slang
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'terminally' + 'online' in a way that is partially compositional: it uses 'terminally' as a hyperbolic intensifier meaning 'extremely' applied to 'online'. However, this colloquial/slangal intensifier sense (and the cultural notion of being so much on the internet that it affects behaviour) is not the literal meaning of 'terminally' and may be unfamiliar to a B1 learner, so the meaning is not fully predictable from the parts.
Etymology
Terminally online is a modern phrase that uses 'terminally' (as in 'terminal illness') to mean 'extremely', creating a clear image of a person who is almost always at their screen. That's why it means 'spending so much time on the internet that it changes how you think or behave'.
