abjectly
advUK /æbˈd͡ʒɛktli/ · US /æbˈd͡ʒɛktli/
Etymology From Middle English abjectli (“with great humility”), from abject (“outcast, rejected; wretched; humble, lowly; of poor quality, worthless; menial”) + -li (suffix forming adverbs); analysable as abject + -ly.
1
In an abject fashion; with great shame; desperately.
- I abjectly apologise for the damage I have done.
- A deceitful man is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He will appear innocent, cheerful, polite, attentive, kind, obliging, and abjectly condescending; but let him once get you into his power and he becomes more ferocious, more cruel, and more destructive than the most savage animals that ever trod in deserts uninhabited by rational beings.1806, Thoughts on Deceit, Margate, Kent: Printed by J. Warren, […], →OCLC, pages 15–16:
1 more example
- So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he could hardly hope to attain.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Leg and Arm. The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London.”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 486:
2
Intensely; to the utmost extreme.
- Never ask a man his opinion of a woman's dress when he is desperately and abjectly in love with the wearer.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Hill of Illusion”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 85:
- Related terms
- abject, abjection, abjectness