dernly
English
Etymology
Adverb
dernly (comparative more dernly, superlative most dernly)
- (obsolete) Secretly.
- (obsolete) Sternly, imposingly.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- next stroke him should haue slaine, / Had not the Lady, which by him stood bound, / Dernely vnto her called to abstaine […]
- (obsolete) Sorrowfully; grievously.