adv. [f. WINDY a. + -LY2.] In a windy manner; as if driven or agitated by the wind; also fig.
1844. H. Greeley, Addr. Hamilton Coll., 23 July, 17. We are here confronted by the low idea which everywhere prevails of the true rank of useful manual toil—by none so cherished, as by those who themselves toil, except by the empty demagogue who windily babbles in bar-rooms of the rights and dignity of Labor, hoping to compass thereby the means of avoiding Labor.
1866. R. Buchanan, Poems, In London, ii. For the world rolls on with air and ocean Wetly and windily round and round.
1880. W. Clark Russell, Sailor’s Sweeth., iv. The stars were glittering windily even before this crimson melted out of the east. Ibid. (1890), Marriage at Sea, iii. The Cape Gris Nez lantern windily flashing on high from its shoulder of land.
1901. Athenæum, 21 Sept., 379/3. The young lady who writes stories and windily reviles the world that will not accept them is the most hopelessly foolish young person of the present reviewer’s acquaintance in fiction.
