Lonely

a. [f. LONE a. + -LY¹.]

  1.  Of persons, etc., their actions, condition, etc.: Having no companionship or society; unaccompanied, solitary, lone.

1607.  Shaks., Cor., IV. i. 30. I go alone Like to a lonely Dragon, that his Fenne Makes fear’d, and talk’d of more then seene.

1634.  Milton, Comus, 200. To give due light To the misled and lonely Travailer. Ibid. (1667), P. L., XI. 290. Thy going is not lonely, with thee goes Thy Husband.

1708.  Rowe, Royal Convert, III. i. 27. When, fairest Princess, you avoid our Court And lonely thus from the full Pomp retire.

1750.  Gray, Elegy, 73. By Night and lonely Contemplation led.

1816.  C. Wolfe, Burial Sir J. Moore, 18. As we hollow’d his narrow bed And smoothed down his lonely pillow.

1856.  Stanley, Sinai & Pal., iii. (1858), 176. Jacob, as he wandered on his lonely exile from Beersheba to Bethel.

1859.  W. Collins, Q. of Hearts (1875), 1. We were three quiet, lonely old men.

1901.  Spectator, 23 Feb., 270/2. The lonely seer has his place in the vast and complex order of things, whether as philosopher or saint.

  2.  poet. Of things: Isolated, standing apart; = LONE 3

1632.  Milton, Penseroso, 86. Or let my Lamp at Midnight hour, Be seen in som high lonely Towr.

1700.  Dryden, Cock & Fox, 3. Deep in a Cell her Cottage lonely stood.

1816.  Byron, Ch. Har., III. lxv. By a lone wall a lonelier column rears A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days.

1866.  M. Arnold, Thyrsis, xx. That lonely tree against the western sky.

  3.  Of localities: Unfrequented by men; desolate.

1629.  Milton, Hymn Nativity, 181. The lonely mountains o’re, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard.

1749.  Fielding, Tom Jones, IX. vii. Being arrived in this lonely place, where it was very improbable he should meet with any interruption.

1798.  Coleridge, Anc. Mar., VII. xix. This soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely ’twas, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be.

1864.  Tennyson, En. Ard., 554. An isle … the loneliest in a lonely sea.

1868.  Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. viii. 231. A lonely spot by the river Charenton.

  4.  Dejected because of want of company or society; sad at the thought that one is alone; having a feeling of solitariness.

1811.  Byron, ‘One Struggle More,’ iii. Though pleasure fires the maddening soul, The heart—the heart is lonely still!

1840.  Barham, Ingol. Leg., Ser. I. Look at the Clock! Mr. Pryce, Mrs. Winifred Pryce being dead, Felt lonely and moped.

1848.  C. Brontë, Jane Eyre, vi. (1873), 51. I wandered … among the forms and tables and laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely.

1882.  ‘Ouida,’ Maremma, I. 179. ‘No doubt they are dead,’ she thought, and felt the sadder and the lonelier for the thought.

  b.  poet. Imparting a feeling of loneliness; dreary.

1813.  Shelley, Q. Mab, ix. 98. A heap of crumbling ruins stood, and threw Year after year their stones upon the field, Wakening a lonely echo.

1863.  Woolner, My Beautiful Lady, 22. A lonely wind sighed up the pines.

  † 5.  (? adv.) ? Alone, without counting anything else. Obs. rare^–1.

1664.  in Dircks, Mrq. Worc., xviii. (1865), 329. And above 40 others [horses] lonely worth £50 a horse.

  6.  Comb.

1863.  Kingsley, Water-bab., vi. 227. He was so lonely-hearted, he thought that rough kissing was better than none.

1882.  De Windt, Equator, 64. Sarikei, a lonely-looking place.

  Hence Lonelyish a., somewhat lonely.

1700.  Pinero, Gay Lord Quex, II. 75. Grotto? dark I suppose, and lonelyish?