sunly

English

Etymology

From Middle English sonnelych, sunnelich, from Old English sunlīċ (“of the sun, solar”). Equivalent to sun +‎ -ly.

Adjective

sunly (comparative sunlier or more sunly, superlative sunliest or most sunly)

1. Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Sun; solar.
   • 1874, Lew Wallace, The fair God:

     Aside he flung his sunly symbols. Like a falling star, from the Vale of Gods He dropp'd, like a falling star shot through the Shoreless space; like a golden morning reach'd The earth, —reach'd the lake.

   • 1907, Harper's magazine:

     "Nay, The sun is single, but her eyes are twain, — Twain firmaments that mock with heavenlier hue The heavens' less lordly and less gracious blue, And lit with sunlier sunlight through and through."

   • 2001, Carl M. Franklin, Carolyn Craig Franklin: Favorite Poems, Quotes and Hymns:

     She agreed with Mark Twain that it "is the peacefulest, restfulest, sunliest, balmiest, dreamiest haven of refuge [...] the surface of the earth can offer."

2. (by extension in contrast with moonly) Sane.
   • 1964, Norman Friedman, E. E. Cummings; the growth of a writer:

     [...] than to win less never than alive less bigger than the least begin less littler than forgive it is most sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky [...]

Coordinate terms

• earthly
• moonly
• starly

Adverb

sunly (comparative sunlier or more sunly, superlative sunliest or most sunly)

1. In a sunly manner.
   • 1863, James Wallis, David King, The British millennial harbinger:

     Hopes that beam the sunliest, Like the wavelet's silver crest, [...]

Anagrams

• unsly