adv. Forms: (see prec.). [f. prec.] In a villainous manner, in senses of the adj.; atrociously, vilely, detestably.
α. 1484. Caxton, Fables of Auian, ix. Better is to lyue in pouerte than to deye vylaynously and oppressyd of the ryche. Ibid. (c. 1489), Blanchardyn, vi. 26. Her true louer, þe whiche … ye haue betrayd & wounded vylaynously.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 86. Howe vylely, vylaynously, and violently he had byn vsed of owre men.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy., I. xx. 25. They were thus villainously intreted, lying along the ground as halfe desperate.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, III. xvii. 137. His sonne was villainously strangled by Alexius Ducas.
1689. Lond. Gaz., No. 2443/73. On Sunday last Sir George Lockhart … was Villaniously [sic] Assassinated by one Cheeseley, who Shot him through the Back.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, XVIII. xi. The Man whose Ruin he hath so villainously contrived.
1758. L. Temple, Sketches (ed. 2), 5. His Verses were what one may call most villainously bad.
1842. Borrow, Bible in Spain, xl. He had a villainously formed head.
1892. A. E. Lee, Hist. Columbus, I. 725. The drainage of the town was villainously bad.
β. 1490. Caxton, Eneydos, Prol. 10. For a thynge more noble is to dye than vylanously to be subdued.
1533. More, Apol., ix. Wks. 865/2. Agaynste the beste,… these blasphemous heretiques in theyr vngracyouse bookes so vilanouslye ieste and rayle.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 355. They set nothing by them, but hated and spake shamefully, and vilanously of them.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., III. ii. 80. Maria. Hee’s in yellow stockings. Sir Toby. And crosse garter’d? Maria. Most villanously.
1631. Gouge, God’s Arrows, III. § 60. 296. They had Villanously entreated the Ambassadors … sent unto them.
1825. Cobbett, Rur. Rides, 66. Verily the most villanously ugly spot I ever saw in England.
1863. W. C. Baldwin, Afr. Hunting, ix. 436. I have been living villanously since the death of my nags.
