clerkly

English

Etymology

From clerk +‎ -ly.

Adjective

clerkly (comparative clerklier, superlative clerkliest)

1. Of clerks; befitting a clerk.

   Synonyms: clerkish, clerky

   the clerkly life

   • 1902, Fred Whishaw, chapter 12, in Mazeppa‎^[1], London: Chatto & Windus, pages 104–105:

     Therefore, desiring to keep my place in the young Tsar’s regard, I did not speak too highly of Mazeppa, though I allowed him to be a shrewd and capable person, of clerkly rather than military attainments.

   • 1938, Graham Greene, Brighton Rock‎^[2], London: Heinemann, published 1962, Part Five, Chapter 4, p. 193:

     Ida Arnold swivelled her eyes round the elegant furnishing of the Pompadour Boudoir. They picked out like a searchlight a cushion, a couch, the thin clerkly mouth of the man opposite her.

   • 1988, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 11, in The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 255:

     I have promised him that when he is released, early next year, I will find him something to do: a job in a gymnasium, if possible, where his feeling for men and physical exercise can be fulfilled, rather than baulked and denied in some clerkly work.

2. (obsolete) Scholarly.
   • 1567, Thomas Stapleton, chapter 6, in A Counterblast to M. Hornes Vayne Blaste against M. Fekenham‎^[3], Louvain, page 36:

     For notwithstanding al your great brags and this your clerkly booke, ye knowe not nor euer shall knowe, but that the Pope is the supreame head of the Churche.

   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 131, column 2:

     Hath he not tvvit our Soueraigne Lady here / VVith ignominious vvords, though Clarkely coucht? / As if ſhe had ſuborned ſome to ſvveare / Falſe allegations, to o'rethrovv his ſtate.

   • 1620, Joseph Hall, The Honor of the Married Clergie‎^[4], London: H. Fetherstone, Book 1, Section 22, p. 121:

     The words are Gratians, that Copula Sacerdotalis vel consanguincorum, The marriage or (as this Clerkly Grammarian translates it) the carnall copulation of Priests, or kinsfolkes is not forbidden by any Legall, Euangelicall, or Apostolicall authoritie, but by Ecclesiasticall Law it is forbidden.

   • 1663, Edward Waterhous [i.e., Edward Waterhouse], chapter XXV, in Fortescutus Illustratus; or A Commentary on that Nervous Treatise De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, Written by Sir John Fortescue Knight, […], London: […] Tho[mas] Roycroft for Thomas Dicas […], →OCLC, page 340:

     [N]ow Clerks and Clerici have divers acceptations, generally all men literate vvere thus called, and becauſe Church men were moſtly of old ſuch officers, therefore all men that are Bookiſh are ſaid to be Clerkly.

Derived terms

• clerkly script

Adverb

clerkly (comparative more clerkly, superlative most clerkly)

1. (obsolete) In a scholarly manner.
   • 1549, Erasmus, translated by Thomas Chaloner, The Praise of Folie‎^[5], London: Thomas Berthelet:

     If these woordis to some seme spoken to clerkly, goe to, I will expounde theim more plainely.

   • 1567, Arthur Golding, “Too the Reader”, in The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, translated oute of Latin into English meeter‎^[6], London:

     For this doo lerned persons déeme, of Ouids present woorke:
     That in no one of all his bookes the which he wrate, doo lurke
     Mo darke and secret misteries, mo counselles wyse and sage,
     Mo good ensamples, mo reprooues of vyce in youth and age,
     Mo fyne inuentions too delight, mo matters clerkly knit,
     No nor more straunge varietie too shew a lerned wit.

   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     Hath he not twit our sovereign lady here
     With ignominious words, though clerkly couch’d,
     As if she had suborned some to swear
     False allegations to o’erthrow his state?

   • 1783, Thomas Holcroft, Human Happiness: or The Sceptic, London: L. Davis et al., Canto 5, p. 56,^[7]

     But I can prove, by reading Clerkly,

     From Leibnitz, Malbranche, Bayle, and Berkley,

     Things far more strange, friend Will, than these;