adv. [f. BLANK a. + -LY2.]
1. In a blank manner, vacuously; with helpless passivity, resourcelessly, aimlessly.
1863. Froude, Hist. Eng., VIII. 65. They were looking blankly in each other’s faces.
1867. Morley, Burke, 63. The once blind souls of men and women who had laboured blankly, as brute beasts labour.
1881. H. James, Portr. Lady, xxxvii. The latter smiled blandly, but somewhat blankly.
2. Starkly, utterly (in privative sense).
1823. Lamb, Elia (1860), 213. So blankly divested of all meaning.
1870. Baldw. Brown, Eccl. Truth, 230. Blankly atheistic doctrines.
3. Point-blank, flatly, nakedly, merely.
a. 1859. De Quincey, Mackintosh, Wks. XIII. 89. It could not be blankly denied.
