[OE. sumerlic = OHG. sumarlîh (MHG. sumerlich, G. sommerlich), ON. sumarligr; see SUMMER sb.1 and -LY1.]
† 1. Of or pertaining to summer; taking place in summer. Obs.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., III. 250. Se sumerlica sunnstede. Ibid., 252. Þære sumerlican hætan.
c. 1050. Suppl. Ælfric’s Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 176/18. Æstiuus dies, sumorlic dæʓ.
1559. W. Cunningham, Cosmogr. Glasse, 34. After this somerlye reuerting, the Sonne is not perceiued to decline farther North.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 227. The grassehopper … leapt and chirpte … among the greene herbes and summerlie plantes.
1749. H. Walpole, Lett. to Mann, 4 June. As summerly as June and Strawberry Hill may sound, I assure you I am writing to you by the fire-side. Ibid. (1771), Lett. to J. Chute, 9 July. The weather is but lukewarm, and I should choose to have all the windows shut, if my smelling was not much more summerly than my feeling.
2. Having the qualities of summer; summer-like, summery.
a. 1225. Leg. Kath., 1678. Euch strete … bute sloh & slec, eauer iliche sumerlich.
a. 1661. [implied in SUMMERLINESS].
1850. T. T. Lynch, Theoph. Trinal, xi. 210. A quiet, most summerly, September day.
1858. Times, 15 Dec., 6/1. Whenever the season is summerly and the weather is damp and mild good housewives give special tendance to their larder.
1894. Jeaffreson, Bk. Recoll., I. iv. 57. I journeyed in summerly weather … to Oxford.
Hence Summerliness, summeriness.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Somerset. (1662), 17. Some will have it [sc. Somersetshire] so called from the Summerlinesse, or temperate pleasantnesse thereof.
