Great; very; exceedingly. A vulgar use of the word in some parts of the country.
This piano was sort o' fiddle like--only bigger,--and with a powerful heap of wire strings. It is called a forty piano, because it plays forty tunes.--Carlton's New Purchase, Vol. II. p. 8.
Yes, Mr. Speaker, I'd a powerful sight sooner go into retiracy among the red, wild aborigines of our wooden country, nor consent to that bill.--Carlton, The New Purchase, Vol. I. p. 74.
Mrs. S. Hoarhound and sugar's amazin' good.
Mrs. B. Mighty good, mighty good.
Mrs. R. Powerful good. I take mightily to a sweat of sugar tea in desperate bad colds.--Georgia Scenes, p. 193.
It may be said generally of husbands, as the old woman said of hers, who bad abused her, to an old maid, who reproached her for being such a fool as to marry him: "To be sure, he's not so good a husband as he should be, but he's a powerful sight better than none."--N. Y. Sunday Dispatch.