Babylonically

English

Etymology

From Babylonic +‎ -ally or Babylonical +‎ -ly.

Adverb

Babylonically (comparative more Babylonically, superlative most Babylonically)

1. In a Babylonic manner.
   • 1599, [Thomas] Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, […], London: […] [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby] […], →OCLC, page 32:

     O he is attended vpon moſt Babilonically, and Xerxes ſo ouercloyd not the Helleſpont with his foyſtes, gallies, and brigandines, as he mantleth the narrow ſeas with his retinue, being not much behinde in the checkroule of his Ianiſſaries and contributories, with Eagle-ſoaring Bullingbrooke, that at his remouing of houſhold into baniſhment (as father Froyſard threapes vs downe) was accompanied with 40000, men wemen and children weeping, from London to the landes end at Douer.

   • 1641, N. N., A Treatise Concerning Estates Tayle, and Discents of Inheritance, […] I. Sherman, […] Iohn Grove, […], page [42]:

     And hereſies in Law (which are ſaid to be ſometimes de immunitate) better then the ancient poſitive Lawes of this Realme, except you think that nature have more bound you to advance others then your owne Children, except you thinke that other men have begotten better Children then your ſelfe, except you more reſpect a like name of another then the true diſcent of your owne bloud, except you mind to ſow hatred among your conſanguinity, except you intend to offer open wrong to your heire, for paria ſunt malefacere, et malefacta non obviare, and except you would vainely and Babylonically erect a Tower againſt the omnipotent power of God himſelfe, which building cannot long ſtand, nor proſper.

   • 1676, R[oger] W[illiams], George Fox Digg’d out of His Burrovves, or an Offer of Disputation on Fourteen Proposalls Made This Last Summer 1672 (so Call’d) unto G. Fox Then Present on Rode-Island in New-England, by R. W. […], Boston: […] Iohn Foster, page 133:

     And that Fox ſhould not ſay the Word and the Spirit are all one (as commonly G. Fox doth) and that the Father and the Son are one without Diſtinction (as boldly and Babilonically he doth)

   • 1849, Tartini’s Familiar [pseudonym], “Musical Notes for May”, in Bentley’s Miscellany, volume XXV, London: Richard Bentley, […], page 646:

     And this it is, in part, which recommends them to our public, but, in part also, it is the overstrained reputation, and the hard names which John and Mrs. Bull pronounce so Babylonically.

   • 1926, Robert Herring, The President’s Hat, London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., page 158:

     At the next ridge they sat down Babylonically and wept.

   • 1965, Marie Hochmuth Nichols, “Kenneth Burke and the “New Rhetoric””, in Lionel Crocker, Paul A. Carmack, editors, Readings in Rhetoric, Springfield, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, →LCCN, pages 560–561:

     Whereas he finds that these meanings are “often not consistent with one another, or even flatly at odds,” he believes that they can all be derived from “persuasion” as the “Edenic” term, from which they have all “Babylonically” split, while persuasion, in turn “involves communication by the signs of consubstantiality, the appeal of identification.”

   • 1986, Miguel Hernández, translated by Michael Smith, Unceasing Lightning, The Dedalus Press, →ISBN, page 48:

     Heart each day more frequently growing cities of love to idolize, cities that fall from all ages babylonically and fatally.

   • 2000, David R. Beasley, Aspects of Love, Davus Publishing, →ISBN, page 66:

     Sacre Coeur pillared Babylonically in the distance.

   • 2020, Anne-Marie Schlösser, editor, A Psychoanalytic Exploration on Sameness and Otherness: Beyond Babel?, Routledge, →ISBN:

     New metaphors are created, a new language, which seems to us Babylonically confused and incomprehensible.

   • 2020, Ben Schott, Jeeves and the Leap of Faith, Penguin Books, →ISBN:

     How Jeeves accomplishes his effortless omniscience is one of those eternal, unfathomable mysteries, like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, or Percy Gorringe’s side-whiskers – which, now I picture them, also hang pretty Babylonically.