Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In an inert manner; inactively; sluggishly.

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

  • adverb Without activity; sluggishly.

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

  • adverb In an inert manner.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

inert +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • But that never happened: there was no continuity in reflection, we pushed ahead inertly, without necessary meditation and without ever trying to really improve the situation.

    Travel 2009

  • Small children sat inertly in rows, some on benches and others on the floor, and I was struck by the lack of noise in a space where there were more than 70 children.

    Jennifer Morgan: For-Profit Orphanages Keep Haitian Families Apart Jennifer Morgan 2011

  • Lauren digs and explores, I kiss back inertly, rubbing his crotch for fun, trying to align our lips in a secure airlock for the least amount of smear.

    Confetti Love Brett Rosenblatt 2011

  • Small children sat inertly in rows, some on benches and others on the floor, and I was struck by the lack of noise in a space where there were more than 70 children.

    Jennifer Morgan: For-Profit Orphanages Keep Haitian Families Apart Jennifer Morgan 2011

  • It turns out umpires and judges are not robots or traffic cameras, inertly monitoring deviations from a fixed zone of the permissible.

    Eric Liu: The Real Meaning of Balls and Strikes Eric Liu 2010

  • Sometimes, the government stood by inertly as people withered—for example, in Kenya, where drought was threatening to wipe out hundreds of thousands of nomadic herders.

    Peace Meals Anna Badkhen 2010

  • Sometimes, the government stood by inertly as people withered—for example, in Kenya, where drought was threatening to wipe out hundreds of thousands of nomadic herders.

    Peace Meals Anna Badkhen 2010

  • As the crimes and criminality are in an increasing upswing, this leadership is just looking on inertly and listlessly.

    Can Obama Become A Savior? 2009

  • But that never happened: there was no continuity in reflection, we pushed ahead inertly, without necessary meditation and without ever trying to really improve the situation.

    Archive 2009-06-01 2009

  • Anyone looking into his cell while he was so engaged would have seen only a discarded Algerian in prison clothes, slumped inertly on a filthy mattress, staring dully at a wall.

    William Langewiesche on Mouloud Sihali Langewiesche, William 2008

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