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  1. ruly love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Neat and orderly: "A small, ruly beard balances his hair” ( Whitney Balliett).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Pitiable; miserable.
  2. Pitiably; miserably.
  3. Conforming to rule; not unruly; acting rightly; righteous.
  4. Orderly; well-regulated.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Pitiable; miserable.
  2. adv. Pitiably; miserably.
  3. adj. neat and orderly

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. obsolete Orderly; easily restrained; -- opposed to unruly.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. neat and tidy

Etymologies

  1. Back-formation from unruly, or perhaps a continuation of Middle English ruly, reuli ("subject to a religious rule, regular"), equivalent to rule +‎ -ly, rule +‎ -y; or perhaps from Old French rulé, reulé, rieulé ("ruled"), past participle of rieuler ("to rule"). More at rule. (Wiktionary)
  2. Back-formation from unruly. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

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Lists

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Comments

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  • reesetee Aw, shucks. *blushing*

    OED has a new website? *trembles* Dec 9, 2010

  • pterodactyl I'm going to take this opportunity to plug reesetee's Prosie "How I Met My Wife", which I dearly love. Dec 9, 2010

  • qroqqa Unable to face the OED's new website, I'm going to guess that a noun 'unrule' is attested first (cf. extant 'misrule'). Dec 9, 2010

  • hernesheir Wordnik's etymological definition states it is a back-formation of unruly. So what does ruly mean, and why is the "un" gloss presumed to have come first? Dec 8, 2010

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‘ruly’ has been looked up 2702 times, loved by 1 person, added to 9 lists, commented on 4 times, and has a Scrabble score of 7.