Meaning of motherlily | Babel Free

Definitions

In a motherly manner.

rare

Examples

“Why do I feel the need to add a second "-ly" to adjectives already ending in "-ly" when abverbializing them? […] "Don't worry about it," she reassured him motherlily.”

“For a long minute they embraced, as though mother and child, each needing the other. Moneeq, now down on one knee, looked Nick motherlily in the eye.”

“When you see Joyous beam, you beam. Bart beams warmly. […] The shape of his gonads must set the ambit of his emotions? No. Fathers worry about the little bugger’s sport’s prowess. What Bart feels like is mother. He notices that the more orthodoxly mother-type person next to him is not beaming motherlily. She is not beaming at all. Her mouth is set like the wardress of Belsen wishing to boil Joyous’s chubby cheeks into candle wax.”

“Ghostlily, motherlily, manlily, beastlily are all dictionary-approved but prohibitively awkward, as is, in another way, lily-liveredly, Likylikely, though . . . […] In American English, at least, there seems to be no way to say something along these lines: “For the nine months I carried you, growing inside me, no charge,” Tammy Wynette sang motherlily.”

“The adjectival suffix -ly, which attaches to person nouns, does not generally allow a subsequent -ly: *gentlemanlily, *motherlily, *neighbourlily, *womanlily.”

““It’s going to be fine,” Mother said in her soothing motherly voice. “Is it?” I whispered. “Yes squishy Josh, it will,” she motherlily soothed me.”

CEFR level