adv. [f. FRUITFUL + -LY2.] In a fruitful manner.
1. So as to produce good results; with good effect, beneficially, profitably, edifyingly.
c. 1450. trans. De Imitatione, I. xviii. 20. Euery tyme þei spendid fruytfully.
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. lxv. § 19. Our very nature doth hardly yeeld to destroy that which may bee fruitefully kept.
1643. Burroughes, Exp. Hosea, ix. 310–1. Now for the opening these severall Feasts, in it you may be helped fruitfully to reade much Scripture in the Old Testament, for much of it is spent in things concerning some of these.
1658. C. Cartwright (title), A Practical and Polemical Commentary … on the Whole Fifteenth Psalm. Wherein the Text is learnedly and fruitfully explained.
1894. Advance (Chicago), 29 April. It is the mission of others to illustrate and to show how to think, wisely, deeply, fruitfully.
† 2. a. Copiously, fully. b. In such a manner as to be prolific. Obs. rare.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well that ends Well, II. ii. 73. La. Not much imployement for you, you vnderstand me. Clo. Most fruitfully, I am there, before my legegs. Ibid. (1605), Lear, IV. vi. 270. If your will want not, time and place will be fruitfully offer’d.
a. 1684. Earl Roscommon, Virgil’s Sixth Eclogue, 45. How scatter’d Seeds of Sea, and Air, and Earth, And purer Fire … did fruitfully unite.
