Word.ws English Dictionary

defly

defly is the obsolete form of deftly.

Meaning of deftly

Adverb

deftly (comparative more deftly, superlative most deftly)

  1. In a deft manner; quickly and neatly in action.
    • For five minutes Pollyanna worked swiftly, deftly, combing a refractory curl into fluffiness, perking up a drooping ruffle at the neck, or shaking a pillow into plumpness so that the head might have a better pose. Meanwhile the sick woman, frowning prodigiously, and openly scoffing at the whole...1913, Eleanor H. Porter, chapter 8, in Pollyanna, L.C. Page, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    skillfully

Forms of defly

comparativemore defly
superlativemost defly

Questions about defly

What is defly the obsolete form of?
Defly is the obsolete form of deftly.

Words near defly in the dictionary

  1. defluorinative
  2. defluous
  3. deflux
  4. defluxion
  5. defluxions
  6. defly
  7. defn
  8. defns
  9. defo
  10. defoam
  11. defoamed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: defly (page history and authors); deftly (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: “defly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/defly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.