(see CASUAL), adv. Also 4–5 casuelly, 5 caswelly. [f. CASUAL + -LY2.]
1. By chance; accidentally.
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. Fame, 679. And moo loves casuelly That betyde no man wote why.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (1835), 174. He homward ayen … Hys journe took, and caswelly To the hyl he neyhyd.
1539. Act 31 Hen. VIII., xii. By chance negligently or casually.
1658. Sir T. Browne, Hydriot., ii. 9. The Monument of Childerick … casually discovered three years past.
1667. Boyle, Orig. Formes & Qual., 4. That Matter barely put into Motion, and then left to itself should Casually constitute this beautiful and orderly world.
1691. Ray, Creation, I. (1704), 102. If the Clouds moved casually.
† b. Accidentally (= by a mischance). Obs.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Nonne Pr. T., 281. Casuelly the schippes bothom rent.
1576. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 151. In a fire that casuallie tooke and consumed the Popes owne chamber.
1678. Wanley, Wond. Lit. World, V. ii. § 38. Basilius … was … casually killed by a Stag.
2. Without design or previous intention; as it happens or happened; by mere chance.
1547. Boorde, Introd. Knowl., 205. Casually going over the bredge … I dyd mete with ix Englyshe … parsons.
1627. Lisander & Cal., II. 24. With whom Lisander casually being.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb. (1702), I. IV. 294. All men, who … had been casually present in the Hall.
1823. Lamb, Elia, Ser. II. (1865), 245. He casually looketh in about dinner-time.
3. Incidentally, by the way, in a chance way.
1697. Snake in Grass (ed. 2), 366. The Joint Answers of the Quakes … is not only Casually mention’d, but particularly insisted upon.
1794. Paley, Evid., I. iii. (1817), 53. Grounds of argument … casually and undesignedly disclosed.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., III. ii. § 14. A word casually spoken … will often revive a stream of recollections.
1862. Stanley, Jew. Ch. (1877), I. xvii. 328. Shiloh is casually mentioned.
¶ ? Causally.
1661. Bramhall, Just Vind., i. 5. The Papacy … is become … in a great part actually, and altogether casually, guilty both of this and all the greater Schismes in Christendome.
