Unluckily

adv. [UN-¹ 11. Cf. ON. úlukkuliga.]

  1.  Unfortunately, unhappily.

  Usually in parenthetic or loose construction.

1530.  Palsgr., 840/1. Onluckely, de grant malheur.

a. 1586.  Sidney, Arcadia, III. ii. Blind Fortune hating sharpe-sighted inventions, made them unluckily to be killed.

1638.  Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (ed. 2), 92. Darab … most unluckily denyes, and goes on to levy men to support the rebellion.

1673.  [R. Leigh], Transp. Reh., 128. Unluckily … there has happen’d a prodigious conjunction.

1766.  Goldsm., Vicar, xxviii. Unluckily all our money had been laid out … in provisions.

1825.  J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, III. 404. Unluckily for him, the order for pursuit was given too early.

1871.  Freeman, Norm. Conq., IV. xvii. 74. Of the state of things … we unluckily hear nothing.

  b.  With verbs of happening, succeeding, etc.

c. 1550.  Vertuous Scholehous, H 6 b. Man feareth that it [sc. matrimony] myght succede vnluckely.

1592.  Shaks., Rom. & Jul., III. iv. 1. Things haue falne out … vnluckily. Ibid. (1607), Timon, III. ii. 51. How vnluckily it hapned, that [etc.].

1711.  Swift, Lett. to Abp. King, 8 March. Nothing could happen so unluckily … as Mr. Harley’s death.

1819.  Shelley, Cenci, V. i. 12. It has turned out unluckily.

  † 2.  Unsuccessfully, badly. Obs. rare.

a. 1586.  Sidney, Arcadia, I. xvi. Urania, whom a rich knight … had unluckely defended.

1638.  Junius, Paint. Ancients, 305. A certain Painter,… who painted cockes most unluckily, gave his boy great charge, to chase the true cockes away from his picture.

1665.  Boyle, Occas. Refl., IV. xx. Many of those young Ladies … are so unluckily Bred,… that [etc.].