Dictionary

drearily en · ADV

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈdɹɪɹɪli/ (General-American)
• /ˈdɹɪəɹɪli/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

From Middle English drerily, from Old English drēoriġlīċe; equivalent to dreary + -ly.

Meanings

1. In a dreary manner.
   • The fear of losing Joe’s confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney corner at night staring drearily at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up my tongue. 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter VI, in Great Expectations […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC:
   • Armistead Maupin's novels reflect more awareness of, and affection for, the texture of real life than As If After Sex. Maupin's characters may get into cartoonlike adventures, but they are real people. Torchia's characters do drearily familiar things, but they are ghosts. 1984 December 29, Duncan Mitchel, “The Cult of Gay Machismo”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 25, page 14:
   • A bereft landscape of sad browns and sepias of winter lay all about us, the marshland drearily protracting itself towards the wide river. 1979, Angela Carter, “The Tiger’s Bride”, in Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories, New York: Henry Holt, published 1996, page 165:
   • It seemed drearily suggestive, the last journey of this humble mortality, in all the splendid environment of the mountains, under the vast expansions of the aloof skies, in the mystic light of the unnoting moon. 1911, Charles Egbert Craddock (aka Mary Noailles Murfree), His Unquiet Ghost:

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