Dictionary

sovereignly en · ADV

Etymology

From Middle English sovereynly, sovereynliche, soveraynliche, equivalent to sovereign + -ly.

Meanings

1. (archaic) To the highest degree; wholly; utterly
   • CAMILLO. Sir, my lord, I could do this; and that with no rash potion, But with a ling'ring dram, that should not work Maliciously like poison: but I cannot Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, So sovereignly being honourable. 1623, William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale:
   • There is something almost magical at first sight in the transformation which the Australian colonies have undergone in a very limited space of time; yet it is but the natural result of the untrammelled energy of a race sovereignly fitted to "subdue the earth." 1897, Anne E. Keeling, Great Britain and Her Queen:
   • All his glorious plays would not be worth (bookseller's value) some scraps of thought and feeling, or mere personal detail, or even commonplace (he must have been sovereignly commonplace) impartment of theatrical business news and gossip to his fellow-players, or Scotch Drummond, or my Lord Southampton, or the Dark Woman of the sonnets. 1880, Frances Ann Kemble, Records of a Girlhood:
   • Yet here was this girl, who called him up to the heights of young life again: and a brave girl; and she bled for the weak, had no shrinking from the women underfoot: for the reason, that she was a girl sovereignly pure, angelically tender. 1897, George Meredith, One of Our Conquerors, Complete:
   • To speak truly, it has but one declaration to make: to proclaim anew the constitutional law, by virtue of which each State sovereignly decides its own affairs, and consequently excludes all interference of Congress in the matter of slavery. 1862, Count Agr de Gasparin, The Uprising of a Great People:
   • They are sovereignly unjust, for all the parties are human beings with the same essential interests, and no one of them is the wholly perverse demon which another often imagines him to be. 1909, William James, A Pluralistic Universe:

Forms