adv. [f. as prec. + -LY2: see -ICALLY.] In a tragical manner or style.
1. With tragic feeling or expression; † in early use, with loud or passionate complaint.
1577. Vautrouillier, Luther on Ep. Gal., 25. Paul might … tragically have cried out against them: O ungracious world.
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1727), VI. 427. Many complain and cry out very tragically of the Wretchedness of their Hearts.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xviii. II. 116. He tragically lamented the cruel murder of Constans.
Mod. A story very tragically told.
2. With calamitous, disastrous, or fatal issue.
1583. in Hakluyt, Voy. (1600), III. 154. Our voyage … ended tragically.
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., Epit. (1612), 384. This king that tragically raigned, being first deposed … tragically ended.
1693. Dryden, Juvenal’s Sat., Ded. (1697), 71. As his Provocations were great, he has reveng’d them tragically.
1885. Manch. Exam., 10 July, 5/2. Their predictions have been only too tragically fulfilled.
† 3. Grandiloquently, rhetorically. Obs. rare–1.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. § 36. 548. And accordingly is it said of Numenius by him [Proclus], that τρεῖς ἀνυμνήσας θεούς, he did τραγωδῶν καλεῖν, πάππον, ἔγγονον, ἀπόγονον, having praised the Three Gods, Tragically or Affectedly called them, the Grandfather, the Son, and the Nephew.
