adv. [f. prec. + -LY2.] In a superstitious manner.
1. In the way of superstition; with irrational religious belief or observance.
1552. Abp. Hamilton, Catech., 21 b. To defend thair self … aganis fyre, watter, swerd,… with certene takinnisor writingis supersticiously.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., I. xi. (1634), 37. Because God will not be worshipped superstitiouslie, therefore whatsoever is given to idols is taken from him.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., III. iii. 40. Dreames, are toyes, Yet for this once, yea superstitiously, I will be squar’d by this.
1686. Plot, Staffordsh., 207. The common people superstitiously beleive, that tis very dangerous to break a bough from it.
1767. S. Paterson, Another Trav., I. 375. The superstitiously-zealous in their own way, they would shew like a company of saints.
1847. C. Brontë, Jane Eyre, xi. But that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid.
1882–3. Schaff’s Encycl. Relig. Knowl., III. 2268. Friday is superstitiously held to be an unlucky day.
† 2. Over-scrupulously; punctiliously; with excessive care or exactness. Obs.
1535. Joye, Apol. Tindale (Arb.), 39. Here thou seist whother Tindale is brought for so supersticyously steking to onely one significacion of this worde Resurrectio.
1659. Hammond, Annot. Ps. xxxi. 6. That heathen men … are … wont to apply themselves … to false gods … observing their responses most superstitiously.
1676. Hobbes, Iliad, Pref. (1686), 8. A fault proper to Translators, when they hold themselves too superstitiously to their Authors words.
1725. Watts, Logic, IV. i. Neither of these two Methods should be too scrupulously and superstitiously pursued.
1791–1823. D’Israeli, Cur. Lit., Hist. New Words. But we have puritans or precisians of English, superstitiously nice!
1816. Bentham, Chrestom., 292. For division, the dichotomous … mode is most to be commended,… but it ought not to be every where hunted out too superstitiously and anxiously.
