afraidly
afraidly adverb: in an afraid manner.
Adverb
afraidly (comparative more afraidly, superlative most afraidly)
- In an afraid manner.
- Birdes with many a piteous pew, / Afraidly in the Aire they flew. So long as they had ſtrength to flée / Then ſwattered down into the ſea:[…]1648, David Lindsay, “A Dialogue, of the Miserable Estate of the World, Between Experience and the Courteour”, in The VVorkes of the Famous and Worthie Knight, Sʳ. David Lindsay. of the Mount, Alias...
- He came back gain very affrayedly, and out at the door, and show[ed] so mony as bidden in the hall what he had heard, wha assayit to pass to the chalmer, to know what was there;1572–1578, Domestic Annals of Scotland, published 1859, page 106
Examples of afraidly in a sentence
- Could these be men just returned from battle?—those gentle, half-timid individuals who already had forgotten their morning’s lust and now were afraidly polite?1919, Harold M[elvin] Hays, chapter II, in Cheerio!, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, page 31:
- I should snuggest the Wawaw Treatment.” “How you do that?” I jar afraidly.1924 March 23, Wallace Irwin, “Letters Of A Japanese Schoolboy: Togo Prefers His Own Style Of Beauty”, in The Sun, volume 24, number 12D...
- Little rabbit hopping afraidly, if that’s fit to use outside the Poets Corner of the magazine, in the road ahead shys off fortunately, into the grass, and I breathe better.1926 June 7, “The Daily Grist: Ground Out by the “Dusty” Miller: Rabbit”, in Wilmington News-Journal, eighty-ninth year, number 202...
- Still Bill held the deposit slip in his hands half-afraidly, really wanting to hold the money, but the banker allayed those fears too.1934 November 29, “Writer Recalls Good Old Days When Storekeeper Was Banker for Farmer”, in The Oklahoma News, volume 29, number 47...
Forms of afraidly
| comparative | more afraidly |
|---|---|
| superlative | most afraidly |
Origin of afraidly
From Middle English affrayedly, affrayitly; equivalent to afraid + -ly.
Questions about afraidly
- What does afraidly mean?
- Afraidly means in an afraid manner.
- How do you use afraidly in a sentence?
- Could these be men just returned from battle?—those gentle, half-timid individuals who already had forgotten their morning’s lust and now were afraidly polite?
- What part of speech is afraidly?
- Afraidly is an adverb.
Words near afraidly in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: afraidly (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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