Bigly
adj, adv ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Big league. humorous, nonstandard
"It had been the very bestest of bigly weekends. Two rounds of golf at his very own course in Turnberry."
- 2 Habitable, liveable; hence delightful, pleasant, pleasing. Scotland
""And steek it weel, thy biglie bower, / And by the rood thee sain; / And tell thy bedes in haly guise, / Till this ae night is gane!""
- 1 In a big way, greatly; to a great extent, on a large scale. archaic
"He looked at Mrs. Harling, who loomed bigly in the dull light."
- 2 Strongly, with great force. archaic
"Thesse men did much in order to publicke good, befor they spake biglie; bot done nothing since, saue that they haue drawin away considerable forces, raissed at wast charges for the publicke defence."
- 3 In a blustering or boastful manner; haughtily, pompously. archaic
"Would'ſt thou not rather chooſe a ſmall renown, / To be the mayor of ſome poor paltry town, / Bigly to look, and barbarouſly to ſpeak; / To pound falſe weights, and ſcanty meaſures break?"
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"He looked at Mrs. Harling, who loomed bigly in the dull light."
Etymology
From Middle English bygly, byggly, biggely. By surface analysis, big (“of great size, large (adjective); to a large extent, on a large scale; hard (adverb)”) + -ly.
From Middle English bygly, biglie, byggly (“comfortable, stately, perfect”), borrowed from Old Norse byggiligr, byggviligr (“habitable”); equivalent to big (“to build, construct, live in, reside, dwell”) + -ly. Cognate with Icelandic byggilegur (“inhabitable, liveable”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.