[f. FIT a. + -LY2.]
1. In a way that is fit; properly, aptly, becomingly, suitably, appropriately.
c. 1550. in Strype, Cranmer (1694), App. No. 49. 138.
| Some of their carcases standith on the gates, | |
| And their heads most fyttely on London bridge. |
15[?]. Turbervile, Compl. lost Dove, Epitaphes, etc. (1567), 130 b.
| Eche part so fitly pight as none mought chaunge his place | |
| Nor any Bird could lightly haue so good and braue a grace. |
1607. Shaks., Cor., IV. ii. 34.
| Cats, that can iudge as fitly of his worth, | |
| As I can of those Mysteries which heauen | |
| Will not haue earth to know. |
1667. Milton, P. L., VIII. 394. So fitly them in pairs thou hast combin’d.
1732. Berkeley, Alciphr., I. § 2. The mind of Man may be fitly compared to a piece of Land. What stubbing, plowing, digging and harrowing is to the one, that thinking, reflecting, examining is to the other.
a. 1822. Shelley, Cyclops, 193. Cyclops. Well, is the dinner fitly cooked and laid?
1870. Swinburne, Ess. & Stud. (1875), 277. The poetry of Ford is no branch or arm of that illimitable sea; it might rather be likened to a mountain lake shut in by solitary highlands, without visible outlet or inlet, seen fitlier by starlight than by sunlight.
† b. At the fitting time or season. Obs.
1605. Shaks., Lear, ii. 184. Retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly bring you to heare my Lord speake.
1611. Bible, Prov. xxv. 11. A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of siluer.
1623–6. Cockeram, II, Fitly, opportunely.
2. Comb., as fitly-contrived, fitly-fair.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. ii. IV. Columnes, 375.
| Our learned Elders then, who on this Sphear, | |
| Heav’ns shining Signes imagin’d fitly-fair. |
1677. Gilpin, Dæmonol. (1867), 182. The secret Powers of Nature (such as that of a Loadstone) by a dexterous application brought into act, in a fitly contrived Subject, will seem Miraculous to those that see not the secret springs of those actions.
