What does "bovinely" mean?
In a bovine manner.; In a herd-following or crowd-following manner: without originality or critical thinking.
Bovinely
adv
adv ·Rare ·Advanced level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: In a bovine manner.; In a herd-following or crowd-following manner: without originality or critical thinking.
- Grammar: bovinely is listed as adv.
- Usage evidence: […] bovinely occupying herself with church, hospital, Red Cross. I say "bovinely" in the sense of following the herd unquestioningly. That's what all her friends did, with time out for occasional bridge and luncheons.
How to use "bovinely"
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Meaning check
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Source and review context
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Before you rely on this definition
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Compare nearby meanings
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Definition decision workflow
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Definitions
Adverb
- 1 In a bovine manner.; In a herd-following or crowd-following manner: without originality or critical thinking.
"[…] bovinely occupying herself with church, hospital, Red Cross. I say "bovinely" in the sense of following the herd unquestioningly. That's what all her friends did, with time out for occasional bridge and luncheons."
- 2 In a bovine manner.; Sluggishly; indifferently; vacantly.
"Curiosity carries many of the daily tally of loungers to the Battery, idleness many others, laziness and hopelessness most of the rest. For the curious there is the seething activity of the vast port of New York […] The idle find the warm hours pass without irk in the salt breeze and bright sunlight. For the lazy there are benches, for the hopeless the delicious proximity of the all-healing sea, whenever their hopelessness becomes so real as to urge them over the stringpiece—always supposing the meddlesome gentleman in blue, whose duty it is to discourage hopelessness, is not too strongly in evidence. But none of these motives, reasons, whatever term applies, seemed to fit Rupert Whately as he sat, elbows on knees, cane to lips, bovinely watching the poppling water and the busy craft. Stout, full-fed, smooth of skin, dressed like a tailor's model, and not more than thirty years old, looked as if in his college days he might have been a doughty oarsman, footballer, or track man, had he not preferred ease and full fare to Spartan training. What he saw in the scene before his eyes was not apparent to the casual onlooker. Curiosity scarcely fitted him. He looked like a man who had never had to leave any desire ungratified. He was too plump and rosy to wear hopelessness with success, and too indifferent to merit such a term as mere laziness. A forty-thousand-ton steamer sweeping grandly past the Battery brought never a flicker to his eyelids. The onslaught of a mob of shrieking youngsters seeking a rolling ball between his highly polished shoes gave him no concern at all. He looked out over the harbor with the gaze of a man without interest in life, in the world, or in the hereafter. Into his field of vision flashed a white sail, utterly out of place among the belching, bustling monsters of steam and smoke. […] She was a pretty bit of marine life, with her two brown-faced young men struggling with sweep and boat hook to fend her from the wall. Still Whately's bovine indifference remained unshaken."
Example
"[…] bovinely occupying herself with church, hospital, Red Cross. I say "bovinely" in the sense of following the herd unquestioningly. That's what all her friends did, with time out for occasional bridge and luncheons."
Common questions
How do you use "bovinely" in a sentence?
[…] bovinely occupying herself with church, hospital, Red Cross. I say "bovinely" in the sense of following the herd unquestioningly. That's what all her friends did, with time out for occasional bridge and luncheons.
Etymology
From bovine + -ly.