lovesickly

English

Etymology

lovesick +‎ -ly

Adverb

lovesickly (comparative more lovesickly, superlative most lovesickly)

1. In a lovesick manner.
   • 1940, Michael Williams, Commonweal - Volume 32, page 371:

     ...and, most of all, a romantic figure like Errol Flynn to captain the Sea Hawks, to be loyal to the Queen, to gaze lovesickly into the big, beautiful, cowy, Spanish eyes of Brenda Marshall, to lead his stalwart men (Alan Hale, J. M. Kerrigan, William Lundigan and all the others including an interesting newcomer, David Bruce) into Panama to rob the Spanish, to stand by them and help them escape when they are captured, and finally to slash his way in duel after duel through guard and intriguing lords to his Queen with the plans of the ARMADA.

   • 1968, Glendon Fred Swarthout, Loveland, page 160:

     Not to phone or meet her or hang around lovesickly.

   • 2015, William F. Buckley Jr., The Unmaking of a Mayor, page 390:

     Not because Costello wasn't technically qualified to serve as Deputy Mayor, but because the designation of Costello under the embarrassing circumstances of his enthusiastic rejection by the voters on Election Day clearly suggested that here was a duty-appointment—done in brazen defiance of the democratic canons about which, during the campaign, Lindsay had spoken so lovesickly.

Adjective

lovesickly (comparative more lovesickly, superlative most lovesickly)

1. Characterized by or suffering from lovesickness to an uhealthy degree.
   • 1987, Gene H. Bell-Villada, Antonio Giménez, George Pistorius, From Dante to García Márquez:

     This wretched victim whose once-victorious arms are now rendered impotent by the misunderstanding of a message from his Sin-Par cannot be the real Amadís, the Doncel del Mar, the Caballero de la Espada Ardiente, only his lovesickly shadow.

   • 1999 October, “Reviews”, in SPIN, volume 15, number 10:

     On the lovesickly, languorous "Flowerz," garage vocalist Roland Clark swoons amid a heat-haze of sound, again spun from a spangly, filtered disco loop.

   • 2001, Flavia Alaya, Under the Rose: A Confession, page 114:

     We faced each other from opposite walls of the well-rubbed stairtower poised in an unblinking lovesickly gaze.

   • 2015, William Humphrey, Farther Off from Heaven: A Memoir:

     People speak of a “sickly” child; I was a lovesickly child.