fragmentarily

comparative more fragmentarily · superlative most fragmentarily

1. In a fragmentary manner.

   So he got his flute, propped up the book against a vase, and played the tune, whilst she hummed it fragmentarily.

   1922, D. H. Lawrence, chapter 18, in Aaron’s Rod

   2 more examples

   In the working-class quarters the barricades were being pulled down, rather fragmentarily, for it is a lot easier to build a barricade than to put the stones back.

   1938 April, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter X, in Homage to Catalonia, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC

   Two were ramshackle old men—droolers as toothless as carp. They were irregulars, armed and clothed fragmentarily with junk taken from real soldiers who were newly dead.

   1969, Kurt Vonnegut, chapter 3, in Slaughterhouse-Five, New York: Dial, published 2005, page 57