adv. [f. STUPID a. + -LY2.] In a stupid manner.
1. In a condition of stupor. Now rare.
1661. Glanvill, Van. Dogm., vii. 62. They that feel it not, are not less sick, but stupidly so.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 149. When ailing he sleeps long and stupidly.
† b. In consequence of stupefaction. Obs.
1667. Milton, P. L., IX. 465. That space the Evil One abstracted stood From his own evil, and for the time remained Stupidly good, of enmity disarmed.
† 2. Apathetically, indifferently. Obs.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., II. § 127. Their wariness and wisdom could not be great enough to preserve them, if they did not stupidly look on without seeming to understand what they could in no degree control or prevent.
3. With gross lack of intelligence; foolishly; in a manner indicative of stupidity.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XIV. 199. Comment., How stupidly soeuer all his interpreters would haue Hector (being strooke into a trembling, and almost dead) turne about like a whirlewind.
1699. Bentley, Phalaris, 250. Would a person of Learning … be … so stupidly negligent as not to examin the Stone-Cutter’s Work.
1700. Dryden, Fables, Ded. C 1. There was engraven on it, Plans of Cities, and Maps of Countries, which Ajax could not comprehend, but look’d on them as stupidly as his Fellow-Beast the Lion.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, II. (Globe), 445. They were all stupidly ignorant as to Matters of Religion.
1743. Wesley, Jrnl., 27 June. I preach’d at Awkborough, on the Trent-side to a stupidly-attentive congregation.
1819. Shelley, Peter Bell, VII. xxi. And every neighbouring cottager Stupidly yawned upon the other.
1851. W. Whewell, Lett., 26 Jan., in Mrs. Stair Douglas, Life (1881), 414. We English are as stupidly servile in looking with reverence on all German philosophy, as we are stupidly conceited about our social institutions and manners.
1865. Lecky, in Eliz. Lecky, Mem., i. (1909), 39. The only printed review I have seen is an exceedingly stupidly written one in the —— ——.
1865. Ellen C. Clayton, Cruel Fortune, I. 259. It stared at her, stupidly, its round, chubby face streaked with tears and dirt.
1885. Manch. Exam., 25 March, 5/1. Nothing could be more stupidly false than such an impression.
4. Obstinately. dial.
1884. Methodist Mag., 52. Moffat stuck stupidly (this last word, in Lancashire, means resolute persistence in either a wise or foolish saying, or course) that he would go and hear Roby.
