† a. So as to deserve execration (obs.). b. Accursedly, abominably, detestably, atrociously.
1633. Prynne, Histrio-Mastix, I. VI. ii. 154. These Playes themselves must certainely be execrably odious to all good Christians.
1671. Milton, Samson, 1362. What act more execrably unclean?
1693. Dryden, Persius, I. 14. ’Tis Fustian all; ’tis execrably bad.
1697. Vanbrugh, Relapse, I. iii. They [the shoes] pinch me execrably.
1794. V. Knox, Antipolemus, 27. The object of a battle was … sordid lucre, or something still more execrably flagitious.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), II. xxxvii. Bells execrably rung for some hours every evening.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls. (1872), I. 6. Pictures, execrably bad in all cases.
