Word.ws English Dictionary

surlily

surlily adverb: in a surly manner.

Adverb

surlily (comparative more surlily, superlative most surlily)

  1. In a surly manner.
    • One of the biggest and most redoubted of the Black Family was now in that seat of dignity, and, refusing surlily to yield it at Jasper's rude summons, was seized by the scuff of the neck, and literally hurled on the table in front.1858, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, What Will He Do with It?

Forms of surlily

comparativemore surlily
superlativemost surlily

Origin of surlily

From surly + -ly.

Questions about surlily

What does surlily mean?
Surlily means in a surly manner.
What part of speech is surlily?
Surlily is an adverb.

Words near surlily in the dictionary

  1. Surl
  2. surla
  3. surlas
  4. surlier
  5. surliest
  6. surlily
  7. surliness
  8. surlinesses
  9. surling
  10. surlings
  11. surloin

Source and license

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