Word.ws English Dictionary

cheerly

Syllables: cheer·ly

cheerly adjective: cheerful, gay; not gloomy.

Adjective

cheerly (comparative more cheerly or cheerlier, superlative most cheerly or cheerliest)

  1. (archaic) Cheerful, gay; not gloomy.
    • Wel ſaid, thou look'ſt cheerely, / And Ile be with thee quickly: yet thou lieſt / In the bleake aire.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    • The first thing that roused me from my meditations, was a cheerly voice that saluted me as I was approaching Tattersall's; round whose gates a detachment of tilburies, stanhopes, and led-horses were clustered."1841, Mrs. Gore [i.e., Catherine Grace Frances], Cecil: Or, The Adventures of a Coxcomb: A Novel, volume I, page 100

Adverb

cheerly (comparative more cheerly or cheerlier, superlative most cheerly or cheerliest)

  1. (archaic) Cheerily, cheerfully, heartily; briskly.
    • My louing Lord, I take my leaue of you, [...] Not ſicke, although I haue to do with death, / But luſtie, yong, and cheerely drawing breath.1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...
    • Oft liſt'ning hovv the Hounds and horn, / Chearly rouſe the ſlumbring morn, […]a. 1645, John Milton, “L’Allegro”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC, page 32

Synonyms of cheerly

7 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of cheerly

Forms of cheerly

Adjective
comparativemore cheerly
comparativecheerlier
superlativemost cheerly
superlativecheerliest
Adverb
comparativemore cheerly
comparativecheerlier
superlativemost cheerly
superlativecheerliest

Origin of cheerly

From cheer + -ly.

From Middle English cheerly, cherly, cherely, cheerliche, equivalent to cheer + -ly.

Words that rhyme with cheerly

Questions about cheerly

What does cheerly mean?
Cheerly means cheerful, gay; not gloomy.
What part of speech is cheerly?
Cheerly can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near cheerly in the dictionary

  1. cheerled
  2. cheerless
  3. cheerlessly
  4. cheerlessness
  5. cheerlier
  6. cheerly
  7. cheermaster
  8. cheermasters
  9. cheero
  10. Cheero Point
  11. cheers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cheerly (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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Cite this entry: “cheerly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cheerly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.