adv. [f. as prec. + -LY2.]
1. In the event of something happening.
1830. Foster, in Life & Corr. (1846), II. 164. Some eventually possible inconvenience.
† b. In order to provide against a contingency; in conditional terms. Obs.
1749. Chesterf., Lett., cxcvi. (1792), II. 239. So many of my letters have miscarried … that I am forced to repeat the same thing over and over again eventually. Ibid. (1752), IV. 3. I am sensible that they can only be met with by great accident at family sales and auctions, so I only mention the affair to you eventually. [So often in Chesterf.]
1785. Burke, Sp. Nabob Arcot’s Debts, Wks. IV. 271. Not conditionally and eventually, but positively and authoritatively.
† 2. In result (as opposed to intention). Obs.
1660. Boyle, Seraph. Love (1700), 2. I … think that Hermione has but intentionally, not eventually disoblig’d you.
1706. De Foe, Jure Div., Pref. 20. King James was not deposed by those, otherwise than eventually: these were the Causes of all this.
1729. Butler, Serm., Wks. 1874, II. 109. Other vices eventually do mischief: this alone aims at it as an end.
3. In the event, in the end, finally, ultimately.
a. 1680. Glanvill, Serm., i. (1681), 80. If one that shall eventually be shut out, may do all this, what shall become of the generality of Religious men that never do so much?
1797. E. M. Lomax, Philanthrope, 278. Seneca … endeavoured to employ every day of his life as if it eventually might be his last.
1843. Miss Mitford, in L’Estrange, Life (1870), III. x. 179. Absentees … will doubtless eventually disappear from Ireland.
1879. Proctor, Pleas. Ways Sc., v. 122. This line eventually became the brightest line of the whole spectrum.
