adv. Forms: 5–6 solytaryly, 6 solytarily, sol(l)itaryly, solitarilie; 5– solitarily. [f. SOLITARY a. + -LY2.] In a solitary manner.
1. In solitude; alone; without company.
1451. Capgrave, Life St. Aug., 23. Because þat al his desire was for to prey and study solitarily.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 423/2. For as moche that I desyre to lede my lyf solytaryly.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 215. A secte of men whiche liued solytarily in the desertes.
1588. Greene, Perimedes, 35. As he sollemnly and sollitaryly walked.
c. 1630. Risdon, Surv. of Devon, § 329 (1810), 339. St. Ann’s Chapel is solitarily situated.
1698. S. Sewall, Diary, 9 Feb. Coach stood by the way here and there and mov’d solitarily.
1833. Westm. Rev., XVIII. 324. They drink as they smoke, solitarily, and without any reference to social enjoyment.
1863. Bates, Nat. Amazons, II. 33. Another nearly allied but much larger species … sometimes excavates its mine solitarily on sand-banks.
2. Apart or distinct from others; singly, solely.
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon. (1642), 118. That it could not be David solitarily … appeareth to bee plaine.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., IV. xliv. 350. To understand … this text, we are not to consider it solitarily, but jointly with the words precedent, and subsequent.
1677. Plot, Oxfordshire, 200. After what concerns women solitarily consider’d,… come we next to treat of things … that concern women and men joyntly.
1875. Whitney, Life Lang., viii. 151. Phonetic changes are especially likely to be thus general, instead of solitarily individual.
