draconically

comparative more draconically · superlative most draconically

1. In a draconic (relating to or suggestive of dragons) manner.

   Sulla breathed heavily and roared draconically. His mouth opened wide, and boiling water and steam rushed from his throat.

   2023, Pearce DeChamplain, “Septimus—Birthday”, in The Valley of Dragons, Pittsburgh, Pa.: Dorrance Publishing Co, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Selenth, being the most prominent copper dragon in the Alliance, had a slightly draconically uncharacteristic ego about him, which showed from time to time and was usually brought back to measure by one of the Capital Wing dragons.

   2013 June 12, J. Michael Flück, “Dragon Council”, in Dragon Alliance: Dark Storm, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 56

   Dragons were hierarchical. The race ran on blood and lineage, and everything about family background mattered. Iampaatar was at the top of the food chain, draconically speaking.

   2017, Yasmine Galenorn, “Smoke and Mirrors”, in Otherworld Tales, volume 1, Kirkland, Wash.: Nightqueen Enterprises LLC, →ISBN

comparative more draconically · superlative most draconically · alternative Draconically

1. In a draconic (very severe or strict; draconian) manner.

   Synonyms: draconianly

comparative more Draconically · superlative most Draconically

1. Alternative letter-case form of draconically (“in a draconic (very severe or strict; draconian) manner”).

   They were alſo in their judiciall Courts equally tyrannous; the one in the Chancerie, the other in the High Commiſſion: both of them at the Councell boord, and in the Starre-chamber alike Draconically ſupercilious.

   1641, A True Description, or Rather a Parallel betweene Cardinall Wolsey, Arch-Bishop of York, and William Laud, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, [London?], →OCLC, page 6

   5 more examples

   Whereas three Italians, on two different occasions, have attempted the life of the Emperor [Napoleon III], therefore he revenges himself on the French and English—by crippling still more Draconically the few liberties left to the former, and by attempting to suppress the constitutional privileges that are dear to the latter.

   1858 February 20, “Napoleonic Logic”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, volume XXXIV, London: […] Bradbury and Evans, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 77, column 1

   But Mr. [Ichabod Charles] Wright has to make good his title against [William] Cowper; and no one that knows Cowper, a true poet, manly and tender, graceful and vigorous, in his translation no less than in his original works, will doubt that the task is likely to be a hard one. Professor [Matthew] Arnold, a sufficiently competent judge, has already pronounced that Mr. Wright has failed—that he simply reproduces Cowper’s manner, and so has, as it is somewhat Draconically expressed, ‘no right to exist.’

   1862 June, “Homeric Translations”, in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, volume LXV, number CCCXC, London: Parker, Son, and Bourn, […], →OCLC, page 779, column 1

   A few years ago we heard of the puritication of the Haymarket and its purlieus. We were assured that in the midnight hours Coventry Street was as decorous as Great Ormond Street at noonday. Still later we were assure that the night houses in those pleasant shades were quite reformed and cleansed. And we believed that all this was quite true. The picture was engaging; the results Arcadian; and the character of the law—sufficiently strict, yet not Draconically austere—was admirably vindicated.

   1869 January 16, “Public Indecencies”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume XXVII, number 690, London: […] Spottiswoode and Co., […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 78, column 1

   I don’t know why I was affected, but I was. I suspect that people like myself are easily affected, and that in the perfectly governed state of the future we shall all be Draconically put to death, and leave the virtuous citizens to bore one another until their time comes.

   1872, Henry Kingsley, “I Go to School”, in The Harveys. […], volume I, London: Tinsley Bros., […], →OCLC, pages 61–62

   If children are taught that they are the creatures of mere impulse, and that self-controul is impossible, they will follow impulse with no effort at self-controul; and when “I could not help it” is a current excuse for misconduct, it justifies the retort, “Then I cannot help beating you.” Law must and will become Draconically severe, when Fatalism explodes the doctrine of Self-controul.

   1876, F[rancis] W[illiam] Newman, “Moral Theism. From The ‘Langham Magazine.’”, in Miscellanies, volume II (Essays, Tracts or Addresses Moral and Religious), London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., […], published 1887, →OCLC, page 321