adv. [f. ABRUPT a. + -LY2.] In an abrupt manner. Hence.
1. With a sudden break off, without warning or preparation, suddenly.
1590. Greene, Neuer too late (1600), 18. And so as I begun passionately, I breake off abruptly. Farewell.
1670. Milton, P. R., II. 10. Now missing him their joy so lately found, So lately found, and so abruptly gone.
1783. Cowper, Lett., Nov. 24, Wks. 1876, 149. Your mother wants room for a postscript so my lecture must conclude abruptly.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick. (C. D. ed.), xxii. 171. ‘Will you let me take the bundle now?’ asked Nicholas, abruptly changing the theme.
1862. Ansted, Channel Isl. (ed. 2), I. i. 3. Fifty miles more to the east … the French coast abruptly bends round to the north.
2. Interruptedly, with sudden breaks.
1607. Topsell, Four-footed Beasts (1673), 586. The body [of the Civet-cat] … having divers & sundry black spots scattered abruptly throughout.
1618. Bolton, Florus, Pref. The varietie of matter makes the minde abruptly flit from one thing to another.
1850. Lynch, Theoph. Trinal, ix. 162. The generations do not succed each other abruptly, but pass one into the other like the pictures in dissolving views.
3. Precipitously.
1623. Bingham, Xenophon, 59. The Carduchan Mountaines being abruptly steepe, lay directly hanging ouer the same Riuer.
1877. Kinglake, Crimea (ed. 6), III. i. 3. It is the high land nearest to the shore which falls most abruptly.
4. Bot. With a sudden termination; as abruptly pinnate, when several pairs of leaflets are formed without an intermediate one at the end.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 183. Scabiosa succisa … Root-stock short, abruptly truncate. Ibid., 18. Fumaria densiflora … lower petal abruptly dilated at the tip.
