Dictionary

slovenlily en · ADV

Etymology

From slovenly + -ly.

Meanings

1. In a slovenly manner.
   • The nest is loosely and rather slovenlily constructed of coarse dry grasses and stalks externally, lined sometimes with fine grass,—sometimes with fine roots. 1848 July, Thomas Hutton, “Notes on the Nidification of Indian Birds”, in The Secretaries, editors, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, volume XVII, part II, number XIX, Calcutta: […] J. Thomas, Baptist Mission Press, page 7:
   • As a popular historical sketch, this part of the work has a value; but it is slovenlily written, and disgracefully printed. 1852, The Monthly Christian Spectator, volume II, London: Arthur Hall, Virtue, and Co., […]; Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, page 248:
   • Hence Sloustering, vbl. n., working slovenlily in wet and dirt. 1953, Michael Traynor, The English Dialect of Donegal: A Glossary Incorporating the Collections of H. C. Hart, page 266:
   • Elsewhere, we read (p. 33) of “to-day in Germany,” which in 1944 is hardly to be taken literally, and suggests that the book has been slovenlily translated. 1944, Life and Letters To-day, London: The Brendin Publishing Company Ltd, page 113:
   • The arrangement of drapery is a test of the taste, which is very rarely favourable to the artist. They are either rendered ostentatiously prominent or slovenlily immaterial, as the painter may happen or not to possess skill in their delineation; […] 1831, “Dogmas on Art.—No. VII. On the Education of an Artist.—(Continued.)”, in Library of the Fine Arts; or Repertory of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Engraving, volume II, number 9, London: […] M. Arnold, […]; Simpkin and Marshall, […]; W. F. Wakeman, […]; and Oliver and Boyd, […], page 198:
   • This new edition of the Utopia, may be spoken of with confidence as possessing those necessary essentials which are too often omitted from negligence, or slovenlily got rid of by probability and surmise. 1815, Egerton Brydges, Censura Literaria. Containing Titles, Abstracts, and Opinions of Old English Books, with Original Disquisitions, Articles of Biography, and Other Literary Antiquities., 2nd edition, volume X, London: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […], page 121:
   • He cannot afford to live slovenlily and miserably, staying in an apartment house or in a boarding house which he could very well afford to do so if he were not the representative of his country, like a mere tourist or a resident therein. 1953, José Maminta Aruego, Philippine Government in Action, page 493:
   • […] the question must still be amended correctly and not slovenlily or carelessly, […] 1953, George Demeter, Manual of Parliamentary Law and Procedure for the Legal Conduct of Business in All Deliberative Bodies, page 209:
   • Turner seems to paint slovenlily—daubing, as one would say; […] The drapery is very slovenlily indicated, and the hands would befit one of the Byron Beauties—a singular defect to find in a work of Haydon’s. 1835, The Spectator. A Weekly Journal of News, Politics, Literature, and Science., volume the eighth, London: […] Joseph Clayton, […], pages 164 and 926:
   • […] in an anteroom were slovenlily scattered the head, arms, and legs, and all the disjecta membra, of another Nubian. 1850, Charles Mac Farlane, Turkey and Its Destiny: The Result of Journeys Made in 1847 and 1848 to Examine into the State of That Country, volume II, London: John Murray, […], page 268:
   • It is left, and must be left to servants, and they can be but under a very indifferent control, and, therefore, very slovenlily perform their duties. 1846 March 28, Herapath’s Railway and Commercial Journal, volume VIII, number 355, London, page 434:
   • Loosely, slackly, slovenlily, disorderly (with verbs of tying, fastening, binding): […] 1857, J[ames] T[homas] Molesworth, George Candy, Thomas Candy, compilers, A Dictionary, Maráṭhí and English, 2nd edition, Bombay: […] the Bombay Education Society’s Press, page 42:
   • This is a volume of considerable literary pretensions; coverin[g] a wide field; bulky, well-printed but of varying, and variabl[e] interest. It is disfigured by crotchets, is by no means s[o] complete as it might have been: and its different articles ar[e] of a very unequal calibre,—some being exceedingly wel[l-]written, and others slovenlily, and without that accuracy an[d] calmness of expression which are so very necessary in [a] work of this character. 1874 April 8, “Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, Ecclesiastical Parties and Schools of Religious Thought. Edited by the Rev. J. H. Blunt, M.A., F.S.A. (Pp. 628, with Index[.] London: Rivingtons. 1874.)”, in The Church Herald, volume V, number 349, page 214:
   • He warned them that if he caught any of them shouting without enthusiasm, or slovenlily dressed, his fate would be black. 1990, ʻAbd al-Raḥmān Sharqāwī, translated by Desmond Stewart, Egyptian Earth, Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, →ISBN, page 178:
   • […] this, which ingenuously (or disingenuously) assumes that collectors are familiar with all the reference books, consists of such airy notes as ‘with the point on page 16’, ‘with all but one of the points called for by Heidsieck’, or simply and slovenlily ‘with all the points’. 1995, John Carter, Nicholas Barker, ABC for Book Collectors, Oak Knoll Press, →ISBN, page 163:
   • As nearly all the medicine here is imported from Europe, ready prepared, there is little for the apothecary to do, except to preserve it from the deleterious influences of the climate, and dispense it; the former is best done in glass-stoppered bottles rendered air-tight. The dispensing in too many instances is so slovenlily done, that great danger is caused, and failure in the treatment of disease. 1871, Dr. Dobell’s Reports on the Progress of Practical & Scientific Medicine, in Different Parts of the World; Contributed by Numerous and Distinguished Coadjutors, volume II, London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer, page 238:
   • It was equally notorious (continues the Colonel) that some of them, when too idle to hoe and properly prepare their ground for seed, have carelessly thrown the grain over the old stubble, chipped it in, as they termed it, going lightly over the ground with a hoe, and barely covering the seed: yet, with no greater assistance than this, the lands thus slovenlily prepared have been known to produce abundant crops. 1804, A Concise History of the English Colony in New South Wales, from the Landing of Governor Phillip in January 1788, to May 1803; Describing Also the Dispositions, Habits, & Savage Customs of the Wandering Unfortunate Natives of That Antipodean Territory. With Some Cursory Remarks on the Treatment and Behaviour of the Convicts & Free Settlers., London: […] for the Editor by Harris, […]; Darton & Harvey, […]; Hookham and Eber, […]; and J. Tindal, […], page lxv:
   • Slovenlily executed and utterly neglected passages are abundant. 1913, The Burlington Magazine, page 171:
   • Now and again the leads of the tenors iand basses were taken up rather slovenlily. 1888 February 1, The Artist and Journal of Home Culture, volume IX, London: Wells Gardner, Darton and Co., […], page 57:
   • On that case it has been sometimes observed that it was very slovenlily argued, and not very solemnly decided. 1905, The English Reports, volume LVII, page 551:

Forms

Synonyms

slovenly