Definitions

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

  • adverb While looking with difficulty.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

peering +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • Mop opened one of his own orbs, as though for the first time, fixed it peeringly upon her, and smiling dreamily, threw into his strains the reserve of expression which he could not afford to waste on a big and noisy dance.

    The Fiddler of the Reels 2006

  • But for some odd reason, it was at that very instant that the priest in sheer perversity spun round like a teetotum, turned his back on the corpse, and looked peeringly in the very opposite direction.

    The Complete Father Brown 2003

  • But for some odd reason, it was at that very instant that the priest in sheer perversity spun round like a teetotum, turned his back on the corpse, and looked peeringly in the very opposite direction.

    The Complete Father Brown 2003

  • But this only the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human look of their round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from the water alongside.

    Moby Dick; or the Whale 2002

  • He went from place to place uneasily, frequently leaving the cabin and gazing peeringly and stealthily into the forest as if he expected some one or was looking for some secret signal known only to himself.

    Monte-Cristo's Daughter Edmund Flagg

  • Then, under banks of fog and cloud, the victorious advance will pause and grow peeringly watchful and nervous, and mud-stained desperate men will go splashing forward into an elemental blackness, rain or snow like a benediction on their faces, blessing the primordial savagery of nature that can still set aside the wisest devices of men, and give the unthrifty one last desperate chance to get their own again or die.

    Anticipations Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human life and Thought 1906

  • Mop opened one of his own orbs, as though for the first time, fixed it peeringly upon her, and smiling dreamily, threw into his strains the reserve of expression which he could not afford to waste on a big and noisy dance.

    Life's Little Ironies Thomas Hardy 1884

  • He looked at me peeringly in the darkness; and then, somewhat harshly, 'Well, _I_ can't leave the bridge, my man,' said he.

    Essays of Travel Robert Louis Stevenson 1872

  • An Austrian sentinel looked on passively, and a police inspector peeringly.

    Beauchamp's Career — Volume 1 George Meredith 1868

  • An Austrian sentinel looked on passively, and a police inspector peeringly.

    Beauchamp's Career — Complete George Meredith 1868

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