fishingly
advEtymology From fishing + -ly.
1
In a manner that suggests fishing, such as groping in search of something, or seeking compliments.
- Monk enquired fishingly whether Presbytery, to which he was well inclined on the whole, might not be thought somewhat rigid.1858, Macphail's Edinburgh ecclesiastical journal and literary review, page 285:
- But the pen-tongued and compulsive verbalizer / Goes fishingly groping for words2012, Samuel Whittemore Fowler, Alive! Volume 2, page 96: