adv. [f. as prec. + -LY2.] In a fierce manner; furiously, impetuously, violently; † sternly, haughtily.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 16795 (Gött.).
| Sua fersli þe erd quock | |
| þe grauis it vndid. |
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., C. 337. Thenne oure fader to þe fysch ferslych biddez.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 1766. Fersely on here foure fet · as fel for swiche bestes.
1471. Ripley, Comp. Alch., III. in Ashm. (1652), 142.
| That ys our Dragon as I thee tell, | |
| Fersely brennyng as Fyre of Hell. |
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, lxxxi. The gayler answered fyersly with grete pryde.
1611. Bible, Esther xv. 7. He looked very fiercely upon her.
1631. Gouge, God’s Arrows, iii. § 6. 195. The more fiercely Christians are assaulted, the more closely they will cling together.
1715–20. Pope, Iliad, XXI. 703.
| Then fiercely rushing on the daring foe, | |
| His lifted arm prepares the fatal blow. |
1719. Young, Busiris, III. i.
| Then with such ardent Eyes he wander’d o’er me, | |
| And gaz’d with such Malignity of Love, | |
| Sending his Soul out to me in a Look | |
| So fiercely kind, I trembled, and retired. |
1801. Southey, Thalaba, VIII. xxix.
| And up she raised her bright blue eyes, | |
| And fiercely she smiled on him. |
1829. Alford, in Life (1873), 42. Read mathematics very fiercely, being afraid of the paper to-morrow.
1834. T. Pringle, African Sketches, vi. 202. After passing the flocks of antelopes, the country became still more waste and dreary, and the noon-day sun flamed fiercely down upon us from a cloudless firmament.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 496. While the Convocation was wrangling on one side of Old Palace Yard, the Parliament was wrangling even more fiercely on the other.
Comb.
1809. Wordsw., Feelings of the Tyrolese, iii.
| There is a bulwark in the soul. This knew | |
| Iberian Burghers when the sword they drew | |
| In Zaragoza, naked to the gales | |
| Of fiercely-breathing war. |
