Haply
//ˈhæpli// adv
adv ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Adverb
- 1 By accident or luck. archaic, literary
"But as soon as her son espied her, bowl in hand, he thought that haply something untoward had befallen her, but he would not ask of aught until such time as she had set down the bowl, when she acquainted him with that which had occurred[…]"
- 2 Perhaps; by chance. archaic, literary
""O my lord the Sultan," said the other [the Wazir], "verily women be weakly of wits, and haply this goodwife cometh hither to complain before thee against her goodman or some of her people.""
Adverb
- 1 by accident wordnet
Example
More examples"Words haply spoken usually are easy to forget."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English happely, hapliche, happeliche; equivalent to hap + -ly.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.