Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Happily
1.
By chance; peradventure; haply.
[Obs.]
Piers Plowman.
2.
By good fortune; fortunately; luckily.
Preferred by conquest,
happily
o’erthrown. Waller.
3.
In a happy manner or state; in happy circumstances;
as, he lived
. happily
with his wife4.
With address or dexterity; gracefully; felicitously; in a manner to insure success; with success.
Syn. – Fortunately; luckily; successfully; prosperously; contentedly; dexterously; felicitously.
Webster 1828 Edition
Happily
HAP'PILY
,adv.
Preferr'd by conquest, happily o'erthrown.
1.
In a happy state; in a state of felicity. He lived happily with his consort.
2.
With address or dexterity; gracefully; in a manner to ensure success. Formed by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.
3.
By chance. [See Haply.]Definition 2024
happily
happily
English
Adverb
happily (comparative more happily, superlative most happily)
- (archaic) By chance; perhaps.
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, II.12:
- And who knoweth whether a thousand yeares hence a third opinion will rise, which happily shall overthrow these two precedents?
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, II.12:
- By good chance; fortunately, successfully.
- In a happy or cheerful manner; with happiness.
- 1808, Daniel Defoe, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Minerva Press for Lane and Newman, page 311:
- And thus I have given the first part of a life of fortune and adventure, a life of Providence's chequer-work, and of a variety which the world will seldom be able to shew the like of: beginning foolishly, but closing much more happily than any part of it ever gave me leave to much as to hope for.
- 1808, Daniel Defoe, The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Minerva Press for Lane and Newman, page 311:
- With good will; in all happiness; willingly.
Translations
by good chance, fortunately
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in a happy manner
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willingly
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