testily

testily adverb: in a testy way; in the manner of someone who is testy.

Adverb

testily (comparative more testily, superlative most testily)

In a testy way; in the manner of someone who is testy.
- […]thinking it urgent to say something, I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the door, which was behind him.
  "No, no!" he responded shortly and somewhat testily.1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter XXXIII, in Jane Eyre. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC
- `We have been looking for a mystery, and we certainly seem to have found one.' `What do I make of it? Why, that your poor dear father was off his head, of course,' I answered, testily.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC

"Sit ye down, I'm sayin'," said Uncle Jobson testily.1930, Norman Lindsay, Redheap, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, →OCLC, page 43:
Stuff and nonsense!” he retorted testily.1942 January 31, The Voice, Hobart, page 5, column 2:
'Oh, for heaven's sake,' said Prak and died testily.1995, Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: a Trilogy in Five Parts, →ISBN, page 458:

comparative	more testily
superlative	most testily

From testy + -ly.

What does testily mean?: Testily means in a testy way; in the manner of someone who is testy.
How do you use testily in a sentence?: "Sit ye down, I'm sayin'," said Uncle Jobson testily.
What part of speech is testily?: Testily is an adverb.

Adapted from Wiktionary: testily (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

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