with great urgency
"health care reform is needed urgently"
"the soil desperately needed potash"
In a desperate manner; without regard to danger or safety; recklessly.
"The climber desperately grabbed onto the loose rock, pulling himself up despite the risk of falling."
In plain English: Desperately means doing something with extreme urgency because you have no other choice left.
"She was desperately looking for her lost keys before going to work."
Usage: Avoid using this adverb when you mean the noun form of desperation, such as in "a state of despair." It should modify verbs directly rather than standing alone as an intensifier for adjectives like "sad" or "tired."
Desperately is formed by adding the suffix "-ly" to the adjective desperate. The word entered English from Old French and originally described a state of being without hope or resources before evolving into its modern sense of extreme urgency.