adv. [f. FORTUNATE a. + -LY2.] In a fortunate manner; by or with good fortune, happily, luckily, successfully. In mod. use often qualifying the whole sentence, intimating that the fact stated is fortunate.
1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. V. (an. 4), 54. After this victorye fortunately obteined.
1600. Holland, Livy, II. xvi. (1609), 54. In that yeare the Romanes fought with the Sabines fortunatelie [bene pugnatum], and the Consuls triumphed.
1681. Dryden, Abs. & Achit., 51.
| These Adam-wits, too fortunately free, | |
| Began to dream they wanted Liberty, | |
| And when no rule, no president was found, | |
| Of Men, by Laws less circumscrib’d and bound. |
1706. Maule, Hist. Picts, in Misc. Scot., I. 16. Tacitus in that age knew not of them at all, neither would these Roman Emperors who warred fortunatly against them.
1794. Paley, Evid., I. I. I. iv. 82. When, fortunately for their preservation, they were not found at home, the master of the house was dragged before the magistrate for admitting them within his doors.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 122. Fortunately, Lord De la War, who had embarked for James-Town the March before, met them the day after they had sailed, and persuaded them to return with him to James-Town.
1855. Motley, Dutch Rep. (1864), I. 171. With a limited education, and a slender capacity for all affairs except those relating to the camp, he was destined to be as vacillating and incompetent a statesman as he was prompt and fortunately audacious in the field.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xi. 72–3. I fortunately possessed a box of wax matches, of which Huxley took charge, patiently igniting them in succession, and thus giving us a tolerably continuous light.
