climbingly

English

Etymology

From climbing +‎ -ly.

Adverb

climbingly (comparative more climbingly, superlative most climbingly)

1. In a climbing manner.
   • 1844, Stephen Prentis, “The Cabin”, in The wreck of The Roscommon, Dinan: J.-B. Huart, pages 23–24:

     With ghastly faces ghastlier from the lamp, / That swung and flicker’d with its yellow flare, / And feebly stain’d their frighten’d features, damp / With chilly sweat and rigid with despair, / Or list’ning to the terrifying tramp / Of feet above the cabin where they were, / Or gazing, as they shrunk and huddled more / And more together on the shelving floor, / Upon the fierce irruption of the seas, / Which now had grown a formidable tide, / That climbingly increas’d by swift degrees, / The passengers were kneeling side by side, / Gentle and simple; but alarm did freeze / Their accents, and the pray’r unutter’d died / Within their lips, ’till fell the mast, and then / « Oh! God! » they cried, and straight were still again.

   • 1862, William Barnes, Tiw; or, A View of the Roots and Stems of the English as a Teutonic Tongue, London: John Russell Smith, page 180:

     Rig, w. to reach about climbingly.

   • 1864 September 7, John Flint South, Charles Lett Feltoe (collector), Memorials of John Flint South, London: John Murray, published 1884, page 181:

     Like the beginners of all arduous under- and upper-takings, we set off at a round pace, and got on swimmingly, or rather climbingly.

   • 1872, H[enry] Perry Smith, chapter XXXVI, in The modern Babes in the Wood or Summerings in the Wilderness, Hartford, Conn.: Columbian Book Company; Syracuse, N.Y.: Watson Gill, page 229:

     We were refreshed with a night’s good rest, and our journey up went on swimmingly—or climbingly.

   • 1911, Frederick Fanning Ayer, “Adelyn, or, How to Win Her”, in Bell and Wing, New York, N.Y., London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons; The Knickerbocker Press, page 553:

     Youth no more, / Only age, / Yet mark the score / How it crowds the page, / How the leaves are thin, / Finger-worn, / Spotted and torn / Where you begin / To think the song / Is fading too, / As all along / The avenue / Of notes the blight / Is through and through / To tax the sight / And lip of you, / Till one full day / You shall hear / Your same notes play / New and clear, / Climbingly strong / As they were then, / For here is your song, / In the wind again!

   • 1912 April 21, “Authority on Cranberries. How Lucian J. Fosdick of Dorchester Has Made His Way in Business---Once Sawed a Cord of Wood for a Dollar---His Avocation of Cranberry Growing---How to Cook Them. His Summer Home in Carver, a Plymouth County Town.”, in The Boston Sunday Globe, volume LXXXI, number 112, Boston, Mass., page 5:

     Of course the metal of the car wheels and the caliber of the baby must be topnotch to allow either of them to react upon grit climbingly.

   • 1920, Gordon Young, “Hurricane Williams”, in Adventure, page 78:

     One of the men, the slender fellow, walked climbingly out on the jib boom; and from there, leaped.

   • 1924, Hughes Cornell, Born Rich, Philadelphia, Pa.: George W. Jacobs & Company, page 210:

     Eugene, the fortunate, the handsome, the gifted, the prize-winner of the season’s most noted beauty, utterly in love and climbingly successful, did not present the appearance, to those who knew him, of an indisputably happy man.

   • 1930, Alec Waugh, “La Martinique”, in Hot Countries, New York, N.Y.: The Literary Guild, page 119:

     From Ford Lahaye it is a three hours’ sail in a canoe, along a coast indented with green valleys that run back climbingly through fields of sugar cane.

   • 1931, Will Durant, A Program for America, Simon and Schuster, pages 90–91:

     Everywhere the picture is one of mingled evil and good: insensitive men amassing wealth ruthlessly, idle women driving them on climbingly; rich men giving handsomely, beautifying cities, endowing research, financing medicine and opening new schools; instalment stimulating employment and intensifying ruin; […]: how shall we ever generalize in the face of such obstinately individual facts? how shall we ever come to any simple conclusions?

   • 1935, E. E. Cummings, Tom, New York, N.Y.: Arrow Editions, page 26:

     Silence: low, clear, and sweet, begins a negro spiritual climbingly which wanders (groping) openingly radiates hope faith, love (hushing the song rebuilds) luminously (searching brightly) seeking (gloriously finding peace, trust, joy) deeply (again softly enters) whispering grows (mounting purely) sweetly (passionately ascending firmly) marching (seriously) toward a truly (toward a shining alive) only toward some unimagined Self—stopped suddenly voices do not sing—light

   • 1944, E. E. Cummings, 1 × 1, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, page L:

     who(on this busily nowhere rollingest it)’s the dizzily he most him—the climbingly fallingest fool in this trickiest if?

   • a. 1962, J[ennifer] Alison Rosenblitt, quoting E. E. Cummings, E. E. Cummings’ Modernism and the Classics: Each Imperishable Stanza, Oxford University Press, published 2016, →ISBN:

     everyone has seen a wave grow climbingly & topple to crash thundering in hugely racing snow

   • 1962, Janko Kotnik, Slovene-English Dictionary, 5th edition, Ljubljana: Državna založba Slovenije, page 480:

     priplézati to climb towards, to reach climbingly

   • 1972 November 19, Tania Demchuk, “Life Has Been Good To The Patrick Tahaneys”, in Orlando Sentinel, volume 88, number 189, Orlando, Fla., pages 6—P:

     All the family’s collectibles — sculptures, pottery, photographs — are temptingly and climbingly within reach of the towheaded youngster.

   • 1985, Lynna Lawton, Glory’s Mistress, New York, N.Y.: Leisure Books, page 47:

     Her fingers curled climbingly along the stem of her wine glass and Merrick noticed a slight tremble to their otherwise composed motion.

   • 1985 May, James Wolcott, “Fish Story”, in Texas Monthly, page 178:

     For the first time, Brooks’ ear-chewing tirades are madly, climbingly funny.

   • 1990 January 10, Leo E. McFadden, “Start the new year smelling the roses”, in Reno Gazette-Journal, Reno, Nev., page 2:

     and there he was, a blackened sketch against a murky-milk sky its arms stretched out climbingly

   • 1996, Merry Bloch Jones, Robert Llewellyn Jones, “I Love Her, But…”, New York, N.Y.: Workman Publishing, →ISBN, page 12:

     Even the most devoted husbands confessed that the adorable, irresistible, captivating loves of their lives at times drove them wall-climbingly, teeth-grindingly nuts.

   • 2006, Bruce Kuklick, editor, Thomas Paine, Routledge, published 2018:

     As one rises here, what vanish are distinctions, just as specific associations eventually disappear for Ishmael as he climbingly circumnavigates the whale in his chapter on whiteness.

   • 2007, Deyi Li, Yi Du, Artificial Intelligence with Uncertainty, Chapman & Hall/CRC, →ISBN, page 260:

     Relay ascending / Jumpingly ascending / Climbingly ascending

   • 2011, Let’s Go European Riviera, Let’s Go Publications, →ISBN, page 80:

     For the slow or step-climbingly-challenged, the rocks and roots here make a perfect spot for the first sit-down water or snack break (you’re less than 20min. outside of Monterosso).

   • 2014, Laura Kasischke, The Infinitesimals, Port Townsend, Wash.: Copper Canyon Press, →ISBN, page 50:

     Your mother and another box of ashes—her ashes your ashes—and how, flashing, those last days passed climbingly drowningly