ladily

comparative more ladily · superlative most ladily · alternative ladyly

1. Of or having the qualities of a lady.

   Her gait / Is slow-sharp and ladily and / Interestingly very natural.

   2013, Joe Tshabalala, “The Queen-like Sister of Ward Twelve”, in Simonne Horwitz, Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto: A History of Medical Care 1941–1990, Wits University Press, →ISBN

   5 more examples

   But will the suppression of the population of the poor, receive the sanction of any but the lordly or ladily aristocrat?

   1830, Robert Dale Owen Unmasked by His Own Pen. Showing His Unqualified Approbation of a Most Obscenely Indelicate Work Entitled, “What Is Love, or, Every Woman’s Book.” […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles N. Baldwin, page 11

   The healer of the sick, whether physician or veterinarian, can by certain known remedies allay the irritations arising from merely functional derangements, but when the sable king in his ladily aspect and with fatal fangs approaches, skill is at once absorbed, and the ‘medicine man’ stands before the ‘grisly monster,’ a spectacle of utter impotency.

   1881 November 8, “Homo”, The Veterinary Journal and Annals of Comparative Pathlogy, volume XIV, London: Bailliere, Tindall & Cox, […], published 1882, page 308

   Even among the most lordly or (or “ladily”) of mankind, painting of the skin is still de riguener with the female sex.

   1971, Hobbies, page 144

   […]gentlemanly and ladily etchings of “Colonel Jack Robbing Mrs Smith” or “Captain Hind Robbing Colonel Harrison” (using the same stage-like scenery) are matched in American legend (see Carol Strickland’s article) by the fictions of “the iconography of mourning” in the graveyard[…]

   1976, Bulletin of the New York Public Library, page 121

   His wife is a fine looking woman, ladily and dignified in her expression and bearing.[…]She sent me some tea-cakes by her grandma, Mrs. Cartwright, an energetic, kind hearted, sensible and ladily woman.

   1984, Yun Chi-ho’s Diary, volume 2, pages 214 and 324

   Synonyms: ladylike

comparative more ladily · superlative most ladily · alternative ladyly

1. In the manner of a lady.

   Ladies in English legend have been known to turn into foxes; but do so ladily, in a properly lady-like manner.

   1967, Japan Quarterly, page 76

   2 more examples

   […]a lady at the table talked so ladily of the Poets that I drank off my glass very often almost without knowing[…]

   1829 January 3, John Clare, edited by J. W. and Anne Tibble, The Letters of John Clare, Routledge & Kegan Paul, published 1951, →ISBN, page 222

   To see the moon so silver going west, / So ladily serene because so dead, / So closely tailed by her consort of stars, / So far above the feverish, shivering / Nightwatchman pressed against the falling glass.

   1974, L. E. Sissman, “December 27, 1966”, in The New Yorker, page 42

   Synonyms: ladylike, ladylikely