adv. [f. as prec. + -LY2.] In a firm manner.
1. With little possibility of movement; so as not easily to be shaken or dislodged; fixedly, securely, strongly; steadily, immovably.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, III. 1439 (1488).
| I wist vtterly | |
| That your humble seruant, & your knight | |
| Were in your harte yset so fermely | |
| As ye in mine. |
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, lv. 187. Euery man praysed gretely Huon that he helde hym selfe so fermely.
1590. Spenser, Muiopotmos, 57.
| His breastplate first, that was of substance pure, | |
| Before his noble heart he firmely bound, | |
| That mought his life from yron death assure, | |
| And ward his gentle corpes from cruell wound. |
1615. Jackson, Creed, IV. xi. By the same faith rightly set, firmlier rooted, and better taken in their harts, or center wherein naturall desires concurre.
1704. Newton, Opticks (1721), III. I. 365. How such very hard Particles which are only laid together and touch only in a few Points, can stick together, and that so firmly as they do, without the assistance of something which caused them to be attracted or press’d towards one another, is very difficult to conceive.
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & F., I. 334. The dangerous frontier of Rhætia he so firmly secured, that he left it without the suspicion of an enemy.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xviii. 127. My guide continually admonished me to make my footing sure, and to fix at each step my staff firmly in the consolidated snow.
1880. Geikie, Phys. Geog., ii. 46–7. The atmospheric envelope clasps the planet firmly, and moves along with it, both in rotation and revolution.
2. Without wavering, hesitation, or doubt; constantly, resolutely, steadfastly.
c. 1425. Wyntoun, Cron., VIII. xv. 29.
| Þe lele Scottis men … | |
| To-gyddyr stood sa fermly. |
1552. Ascham, in Lett. Lit. Men (Camden) 12. I am thus firmelie persuaded that God wist and wold we wold be thankfull.
1647. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., I. (1843), 14/2. He was not only firmly resolved never to trust him, or to have to do with [him;] but that he was, and would be always, his declared enemy.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 177, 26 Nov., ¶ 9. He offered to shew me a copy of The Children in the Wood, which he firmly believed to be of the first edition.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., III. 119. Stilicho left the command of the troops of the East to Gainas, the Goth, on whose fidelity he firmly relied.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 110. The great majority of the nation was firmly attached to hereditary monarchy.
1871. Morley, Voltaire (1886), 11. It was time to trust firmly to the free understanding of men for guidance in the voyage after truth.
1887. Daily News, 7 June, 2/6. Foreign wheats firmly held.
3. Comb., as firmly-braided, -closed, -rooted.
1877. Black, Green Past., xxi. (1878), 167. Her face was flushed a rose-red with the brisk driving through the keen wind; the sunlight touched the *firmly-braided masses of hair and the delicate oval of her cheek; and as he went out of the station-house into the road, the beautiful, tender, grey-blue eyes were lit up by such a smile of gladness as ought to have been sufficient welcome to him.
1888. F. Hume, Madame Midas, I. iii. With *firmly-closed lips.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), II. 249. The *firmly-rooted Christian may say, that all necessary truths are raised up to the surface by the written word, where they stand apparent in such legible characters as that he who runs may read.
