adv. [f. STEADY a. + -LY2.] In a steady manner (see senses of the adj.); firmly, unwaveringly, steadfastly, uniformly, etc.
1540. Palsgr., Acolastus, III. iii. P ij. Seyng that she [fortune] is but a wandrer, that strayeth from place to place like a vacabunde .i. dothe nothyng stedyly or certainly.
1565. Cooper, Thesaurus, s.v. Pressus, Presso gradu incedere, to goe steedily and surely.
1678. Bunyan, Pilgr., I. (ed. 2), 202. The remembrance … made their hand shake; by means of which impediment, they could not look steddily through the Glass.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xli. Dorothee, however, steadily refused to do this.
1827. Faraday, Chem. Manip., iii. (1842), 81. When the jars to be graduated are such as cannot stand steadily upon their own bases.
1886. Field, 4 Sept., 347/2. The pack, working steadily on his [the stag’s] line, ran right up to him.
1909. J. McCabe, Decay Ch. Rome, xii. 268. I have worked up the results given in the Belgian journals after the elections of 1902, 1904 and 1906, and find that the Catholics have steadily lost ground.
Comb. 1891. Hardwicke’s Sci.-Gossip, XXVI. 1/2. A small but steadily-increasing distance.
