Brokenly
adv ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 In a broken manner.
"—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."
- 2 with gaps between words so that normal flow or fluency is affected, as due to emotion; disjointedly.
"It was a long time before he could steady his nerves to answer my questions, and then he answered perplexingly and brokenly."
Example
More examples"—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."
Etymology
From broken + -ly.
More for "brokenly"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.