[f. TRIM a. + -LY2.] In a trim manner.
† 1. Effectively, thoroughly, soundly, properly; cleverly, featly, neatly, nicely; finely, well. Obs.
1503–13. Dunbar, Poems, liii. 200. Quhen I saw hir sa trimlye dance, Hir guid conwoy and countenance.
1556. Olde, Antichrist, 171. Being trymlye furnished in false wyles and lies.
1579–80. North, Plutarch (1676), 489. Little showers … which … make the Earth bring forth all things very trimly.
1600. Fairfax, Tasso, VI. xcvii. This formost hazard had she trimly past.
1623. Lisle, Ælfric on O. & N. Test., Pref. 11. Harke ye … how trimly this sounds in English.
1679. C. Nesse, Antid. agst. Popery, 133. Scaliger truly and trimly told the Jesuits.
2. So as to be neat, elegant, or smart in appearance or effect; neatly; finely, smartly.
1523. [Coverdale], Old God & New (1534), P j. They shall haue trymly garnyshed & decked the aulters with many ymages.
1545. Elyot, Candide uestitus, trymmely apparayled…. Concinne, properly, honestly, trymly.
1588. Parke, trans. Mendoza’s Hist. China, 331. The women [with] their haire trimly kembed and dressed.
1645. Milton, Colast., Wks. 1851, IV. 348. The stuff, though very cours and thredbare, garnisht and trimly fac’t with the commendation of a Licencer.
c. 1728. Somerville, To A. Ramsay, 65. In all her richest head-geer trimly clad.
1879. Butcher & Lang, Odyssey, VII. 107. All manner of garden beds, planted trimly.
