adv. [f. BLUE a. + -LY2.]
1. With a blue color or tinge.
1647. H. More, Song of Soul, II. App. xciv. Then blewly pale, then duller still, till perfect dead.
1818. Keats, Endym., I. 605. Her hovering feet, More bluely veind Than those of sea-born Venus.
1844. Hood, Haunted Ho., lxiii. The taper burning bluely.
1852. D. Moir, Graves of Dead, i.
As erst of yore, when the skies of childhood | |
Gleamd bluely oer us without a stain. |
† 2. Badly, with bad success; only in phrase To come off bluely. Obs.
c. 1650. 2nd Narrat. late Parl., in Select. Harl. Misc. (1793), 425. Yet [he] came off bluely in the end.
1653. Urquhart, Rabelais, IV. xxxv. He still came off but bluely by reason of the Care and Vigilance of the Chitterlings.
1710. T. Ward, Eng. Ref., I. 67 (D.). We shall come off but blewly here.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), I. Bluely [badly], male. He came off but bluely, malè res successit.