(see prec.) Now dial. or arch. [f. TOWARD a. + -LY2. Cf. OE. tóweardlíce, in time to come, in the future (which did not survive in ME.).) In a ‘toward’ or ‘towardly’ manner; with favorable disposition; willingly, compliantly, obligingly; docilely, tractably, submissively; with promise of good progress, promisingly: see the adj.
1481. Coventry Leet Bk., 484. Wherin ye shewed yewe ryght benyvolent and towardly disposed.
1523. Hen. VIII., in Ellis, Orig. Lett., Ser. I. I. 238. Thanks unto all the lords, capitains, and other which … have right towardly, benivolently, and conformably served as under you in this Jorney.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 195. Wyll you reedes shrinke still to all windes towardly?
1597. Morley, Introd. Mus., 55. To see my schollers go towardlie forward in their studies.
1704. Penn, in Pa. Hist. Soc. Mem., IX. 342. If our friends will not behave towardly, I shall be constrained to break it.
1819. R. Anderson, Cumbld. Ball., 43. How tow’rtly she com heame!
1874. Daily News, 12 Aug. Postmaster-General Lord John Manners hands in the Twentieth Annual Report of his office as towardly as if he had done nothing but deliver letters all his life.
