adv. [f. prec. adj. + -LY2.]
1. In a supreme degree, to a supreme extent.
1615. Chapman, Odyss., XXIV. 24. The supremely strenuous Of all the Greeke hoast.
1696. Tate & Brady, Ps. C. iv. For He ’s the Lord, supreamly good.
1718. Prior, Solomon, I. 53. The fair Cedar, on the craggy Brow Of Lebanon nodding supremely tall.
1726. Pope, Odyss., XXIII. 62. How blest this happy hour, should he appear, Dear to us all, to me supremely dear!
1781. Cowper, Ep. Lady Austen, 34. The hand of the Supremely Wise.
1865. Ellen C. Clayton, Cruel Fortune, I. 123. That young person … was supremely jealous of every new pet her mistress took a fancy to.
1870. Lowell, Among my Books, Ser. I. (1873), 169. More supremely incapable [of this] than any other man who ever wrote English.
1885. ‘Mrs. Alexander,’ Valerie’s Fate, vi. Those [moments] … dwelt forever in the memory of both as supremely blissful.
† 2. By or with supreme authority or power. rare.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., I. 65. All suits are there supreamly decided.
1734. trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827), I. II. iii. 301. The senate decided supremely, and there lay no appeal from it.
So Supremeness, the quality of being supreme; supreme degree.
1843. Poe, Premature Burial, Wks. 1864, I. 331. The supremeness of bodily and of mental distress.
1896. A. Whyte, Bible Characters, x. I. 112. Abram’s mortifications and humiliations in Egypt and elsewhere had resulted in an amazing elevation, detachment, supremeness, and sweetness of soul.
