filchingly

English

Etymology

filching +‎ -ly

Adverb

filchingly (not comparable)

1. (uncommon) By filching; thievingly.
   • 1619, John Favour, Antiquitie Triumphing Over Noveltie […]‎^[1], page 389:

     In so much that at Rome Liberius, at Hierusalem Cyrillus, at Alexandria George, did filchingly and shamefully gouerne all Churches with hereticall dissembling, and so vehemently persecuted the Catholickes, that this persecution seemed to surtop all passed persecutions of former tyrants.

   • 1737 [1546], François Rabelais, “[The Third Book of Pantagruel]”, in John Ozell, transl., The Works of Francis Rabelais, M.D., volume 3, page 114:

     But (Sir) according to my Judgment, you do understand both of and by yourself, that here Stealth signifieth nothing else, no more than in a thousand other places of Greek and Latin, Old and Modern Writings, but the sweet Fruits of amorous Dalliance, which Venus liketh best, when reap’d in secret, and cull’d by fervent Lovers filchingly.

   • 1853 January, J. W. Keyes, “Patents and Patentees”, in The American Journal of Dental Science, volume 3, number 2, page 260:

     And henceforth, any member of the profession who shall be so lost to a just sense of right […] as to patent any improvements or hold any secrets in the art of healing, should be held at the same distance, regarded with the same disgust and loathing as that horde of contemptible soulless creatures, who, by means of their patent nostrums, thrust, filchingly thrust, their polluted lucre-loving hands into the pockets of the poor, the honest, the ignorant, the sick and dying.

   • 1873, James Morison, Mark’s Memoirs of Jesus Christ: A Commentary on the Gospel According to Mark, page lxvii:

     For where can be found even so much as a needle-point’s breadth of probability, that a Gospel, originated in the apostolic circle […] [could be] laid aside, to make room for an upstart composition, written by nobody knows who, but filchingly bearing the honoured name of the genuine original document?

Further reading

• “filchingly”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.