Reflectively

adv

adv ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    In a reflective manner; meditatively.

    ""I should say yes," agreed George. "And talk about speed!" he added. "Wow! One ball he threw soaked me in the ear. I can feel it yet!" and he rubbed the side of his head reflectively."

  2. 2
    By means of reflection.

    "In JIT compilation, the running program is reflectively modified by an embedded compiler, which only uses two reflective operations […]"

Adverb
  1. 1
    in a reflective manner wordnet

Example

More examples

""Have you ever noticed," asked Anne reflectively, "that when people say it is their duty to tell you a certain thing you may prepare for something disagreeable? Why is it that they never seem to think it a duty to tell you the pleasant things they hear about you?""

Etymology

From reflective + -ly.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.