English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
According to Collins English Usage,
Badly has another different meaning. If you need or want something badly, you need or want it very much: I am badly in need of advice; I want this job so badly; We badly need the money.
For this meaning of badly, don't use the comparative and superlative forms ‘worse’ and ‘worst’. Instead you use the forms more badly and most badly.
Is this distinction due to its meaning "(very) much", which already uses more/most as its comparative/superlative forms?
Worse and worst are the comparative and superlative forms of the adjective bad not the adverb badly. If you want to say more bad, you should use worse, but now you're using badly. So you would need to use worsely. But worsely isn't a word. You can't say "I am worsely in need of money than before". So you have to use more badly.
