Dictionary

clerkly en · ADJ

Etymology

From clerk + -ly.

Meanings

1. Of clerks; befitting a clerk.
   • the clerkly life
   • 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. 1938, Graham Greene, Brighton Rock, London: Heinemann, published 1962, Part Five, Chapter 4, p. 193:
   • 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. 1902, Fred Whishaw, chapter 12, in Mazeppa, London: Chatto & Windus, pages 104–105:
   • 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. 1988, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 11, in The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 255:
2. (obsolete) Scholarly.
   • 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. 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:
   • 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. 1567, Thomas Stapleton, chapter 6, in A Counterblast to M. Hornes Vayne Blaste against M. Fekenham, Louvain, page 36:
   • [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. 1663, Edward Waterhous[e], 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:
   • 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. 1620, Joseph Hall, The Honor of the Married Clergie, London: H. Fetherstone, Book 1, Section 22, p. 121:

Forms

Deriveds

clerkliness · clerkly script · unclerkly

Synonyms

clerky · clerkish

clerkly en · ADV

Etymology

From clerk + -ly.

Meanings

1. (obsolete) In a scholarly manner.
   • 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? 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]:
   • 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. 1567, Arthur Golding, “Too the Reader”, in The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, translated oute of Latin into English meeter, London:
   • 1783, Thomas Holcroft, Human Happiness: or The Sceptic, London: L. Davis et al., Canto 5, p. 56, But I can prove, by reading Clerkly, From Leibnitz, Malbranche, Bayle, and Berkley, Things far more strange, friend Will, than these;
   • If these woordis to some seme spoken to clerkly, goe to, I will expounde theim more plainely. 1549, Erasmus, translated by Thomas Chaloner, The Praise of Folie, London: Thomas Berthelet:

Forms