dryly

comparative more dryly · superlative most dryly · alternative drily

1. In a dry manner.

   The company were convulsed with laughter, all except the host himself, who dryly remarked: ‘Very amusing, Mr. Robert, very amusing, truly; ye're a clever lad, very clever; but just let me tell you, […]’

   1900, Thomas Finlayson Henderson, “CULLEN, Robert”, in Dictionary of National Biography, volume 13, page 279

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   “Are you going?” said Mr. Chester, rising with a graceful indolence. “Let me light you down the stairs.” “Pray keep your seat,” returned the other dryly, “I know the way.” So, waving his hand slightly, and putting on his hat as he turned upon his heel, he went clanking out as he had come, shut the door behind him, and tramped down the echoing stairs. “Pah! A very coarse animal, indeed!” said Mr. Chester, composing himself in the easy chair again. “A rough brute. Quite a human badger!”

   1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge. Chapter 20.”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume III, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 305

   “My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”

   1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, “Zollenstein”, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 41

   "Accident, Suicide, Murder?" "Undoubtedly neither accident nor suicide," he said dryly. […] "You incline to the idea, then, that Mrs. Owen was murdered. Do you know by whom?" He laughed, and drew forth the piece of string he always fidgeted with when unravelling some mystery. "You would like to know who murdered that old woman?" he asked at last. "I would like to hear your views on the subject," Polly replied. "I have no views," he said dryly. "No one can know who murdered the woman, since no one ever saw the person who did it. No one can give the faintest description of the mysterious man who alone could have committed that clever deed, and the police are playing a game of blind man's buff."

   1909, Emma Orczy, chapter XXXIV, in The Old Man in the Corner

   "Wasn't his father in steamships or something?" asked Charlotte. "Aye! Steamships and railroads and banks and trust companies, and nubbody knows what all! But when he died two years ago, mark ye now, he couldn't take a penny of it with him. So his boy Perry come in for it all." "Was that his wife I met on the veranda?" asked Charlotte. "Perry's wife? Not likely! He isna married." "I wonder why." "Courted to death, I'm thinking," said Mr. Ogilvie dryly. "Poor thing!" said Charlotte, more dryly than he.

   1918, George Weston, chapter VII, in The Apple-Tree Girl, page 115

   Then at the last minute Harris was brought aboard as Dr. Zachary Smith, initially an authentic, lip-curling nogoodnik who, it was presently discovered, could be better used for laughs played off Mumy and a sober-sided robot (“You bubbleheaded booby,” sneers Harris. “That does not compute,” returns the robot dryly).

   1966 September 24, TV Guide, Radnor, Pa., page 25, column 1