Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In a bungling manner; clumsily; awkwardly.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb Clumsily; awkwardly.

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

  • adverb In a bungling manner; clumsily.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From bungling +‎ -ly.

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Examples

  • Abraham Lincoln was born on an isolated farm in the slave state of Kentucky to an illiterate father, who could only "bunglingly" write his name.

    The Guardian World News 2009

  • The greatest favors may be done so awkwardly and bunglingly as to offend; and disagreeable things may be done so agreeably as almost to oblige.

    Letters to his son on The Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman 2005

  • His father could, as Abraham said later in his life, "bunglingly sign his own name but was otherwise illiterate."

    The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of America 1994

  • At the trial I hope to bare the whole structure of the police provocation prepared, bunglingly, by Captain Piotrowski's chums in Gdansk.

    Letter from the Gdansk Prison Michnik, Adam 1985

  • "I know very little about ladies 'dress," he said apologetically, "and I fear I may express myself rather bunglingly, but to me the chief beauty of your gown consists in the fact that it reveals and enhances the beauty of the wearer; in that sense, I consider it very beautiful."

    At the Time Appointed J. N. [Illustrator] Marchand

  • That part of his life-story was done with; it had been interpreted bunglingly and ignorantly to be sure, but the lesson, learned by failure, had sunk deep in his heart.

    The Man Thou Gavest

  • The meal Crossman had bunglingly prepared lay untouched on the table.

    O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Various

  • The relation of the parties to each other is a great mystification, bunglingly managed: we cannot understand at last how Victor, the hero of the chief love-passage, turns out to be the son of a clergyman instead of a lord, and Flamin the son of a lord in spite of the plain declaration on the first page that he belongs to a clergyman.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 Various

  • By doing it well, he may help to kindle a flame in a lady's heart; at all events, to do it bunglingly would be ill-bred.

    Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce E. R. Billings

  • Probably the address, bunglingly adjusted on the side instead of the top, or else a stain of mud from the late rough drive.

    Idle Hour Stories Eugenia Dunlap Potts

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