ladily

English

Alternative forms

• ladyly

Etymology

From Middle English ladyly, ladily; equivalent to lady +‎ -ly.

Adjective

ladily (comparative more ladily, superlative most ladily)

1. Of or having the qualities of a lady.
   • 1830, Robert Dale Owen Unmasked by His Own Pen. Showing His Unqualified Approbation of a Most Obscenely Indelicate Work Entitled, “What Is Love, or, Every Woman’s Book.” […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles N. Baldwin, page 11:

     But will the suppression of the population of the poor, receive the sanction of any but the lordly or ladily aristocrat?

   • 1881 November 8, “Homo”, The Veterinary Journal and Annals of Comparative Pathlogy, volume XIV, London: Bailliere, Tindall & Cox, […], published 1882, page 308:

     The healer of the sick, whether physician or veterinarian, can by certain known remedies allay the irritations arising from merely functional derangements, but when the sable king in his ladily aspect and with fatal fangs approaches, skill is at once absorbed, and the ‘medicine man’ stands before the ‘grisly monster,’ a spectacle of utter impotency.

   • 1971, Hobbies, page 144:

     Even among the most lordly or (or “ladily”) of mankind, painting of the skin is still de riguener with the female sex.

   • 1976, Bulletin of the New York Public Library, page 121:

     […] gentlemanly and ladily etchings of “Colonel Jack Robbing Mrs Smith” or “Captain Hind Robbing Colonel Harrison” (using the same stage-like scenery) are matched in American legend (see Carol Strickland’s article) by the fictions of “the iconography of mourning” in the graveyard […]

   • 1984, Yun Chi-ho’s Diary, volume 2, pages 214 and 324:

     His wife is a fine looking woman, ladily and dignified in her expression and bearing. […] She sent me some tea-cakes by her grandma, Mrs. Cartwright, an energetic, kind hearted, sensible and ladily woman.

   • 2013, Joe Tshabalala, “The Queen-like Sister of Ward Twelve”, in Simonne Horwitz, Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto: A History of Medical Care 1941–1990, Wits University Press, →ISBN:

     Her gait / Is slow-sharp and ladily and / Interestingly very natural.

Synonyms

• ladylike

Adverb

ladily (comparative more ladily, superlative most ladily)

1. In the manner of a lady.
   • 1829 January 3, John Clare, edited by J. W. and Anne Tibble, The Letters of John Clare, Routledge & Kegan Paul, published 1951, →ISBN, page 222:

     […] a lady at the table talked so ladily of the Poets that I drank off my glass very often almost without knowing […]

   • 1967, Japan Quarterly, page 76:

     Ladies in English legend have been known to turn into foxes; but do so ladily, in a properly lady-like manner.

   • 1974, L. E. Sissman, “December 27, 1966”, in The New Yorker, page 42:

     To see the moon so silver going west, / So ladily serene because so dead, / So closely tailed by her consort of stars, / So far above the feverish, shivering / Nightwatchman pressed against the falling glass.

Synonyms

• ladylikely