brokenly

English

Etymology

From broken +‎ -ly.

Adverb

brokenly (comparative more brokenly, superlative most brokenly)

1. In a broken manner.
   • 1827, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, Intemperence, page 155:

     —Something I said,
     But faint and brokenly of former days,
     When in the paths of science and of hope,
     We walk'd, twin-hearted.—Then there came a peal
     Of vacant laughter from those bloated lips,
     And the swoll'n hand with trembling haste was stretch'd
     For friendship's grasp.

   • 1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 125:

     It split and melted and splayed its contents brokenly.

2. (Of speech) with gaps between words so that normal flow or fluency is affected, as due to emotion; disjointedly.
   • 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 83:

     It was a long time before he could steady his nerves to answer my questions, and then he answered perplexingly and brokenly.

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     Upon which, you slink out, bathed in shame and confusion, and Upjohn thanks me brokenly and says if there is anything he can do for me, I have only to name it.