Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In an observing or attentive manner; attentively; carefully.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb attentively, observantly

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb in an observant manner

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

observing +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • She will need to hold her breath, I said, reading on, if she is to do it; for women are so suspicious of any interest that has not some obvious motive behind it, so terribly accustomed to concealment and suppression, that they are off at the flicker of an eye turned observingly in their direction.

    A room of one's own 2006

  • When the humans arrived, most heads turned observingly.

    A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows Anderson, Poul, 1926- 1974

  • She does so, and he looks observingly at_ JOHN, _and then goes to the table, and makes a noise with the bag on the table.

    The Drone A Play in Three Acts Rutherford Mayne

  • In spite of her agitation she forced herself to study it observingly, making note that it was tied with strong cord and sealed in several places with red wax.

    The Apartment Next Door William Andrew Johnston

  • Hi Lang had uttered no comment on what had occurred, but he was keeping up a constant thinking, now and then scowling observingly at his charges.

    Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert Jessie Graham [pseud.] Flower

  • Would men observingly distil it out; but here, it may be said, we are shown a thing absolutely evil, and -- what is more dreadful still -- this absolute evil is united with supreme intellectual power.

    Shakespearean Tragedy Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth 1893

  • Would men observingly distil it out, is a comprehensive maxim, which sounds as if it came straight from

    Shakespeare and the Modern Stage with Other Essays Sidney Lee 1892

  • By reading the afore-mentioned three columns horizontally and _onwards_, instead of vertically and _downwards_ "in the old trite vulgar way," it was contended that much mirth might observingly be distilled from the most unhopeful material, as "_blind Chance_" frequently brought about the oddest conjunctions, and not seldom compelled _sub juga aenea_ persons and things the most dissimilar and discordant.

    De Libris: Prose and Verse Austin Dobson 1880

  • When the vicomte entered the gallery of the cafe, he looked observingly about him, and then approached a group of young men who all wore plain black clothing and whose manners were somewhat military.

    The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II Jules Lermina 1877

  • As it is not supposable that the mind of man has just become observingly active in the last few centuries, absolute evidence of purer and deeper reason than we have been able to present, stand recorded on the faces of many valuable "lost arts" which we have never been able to equal.

    Philosophy of Osteopathy 1872

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