COURTLY (courtlier, courtliest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: courtlier    , courtliest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does courtly mean? 

• COURTLY (adjective)
  The adjective COURTLY has 1 sense:

1. refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a royal court

  Familiarity information: COURTLY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COURTLY (adjective)

Comparative: courtlier   
Superlative: courtliest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Refined or imposing in manner or appearance; befitting a royal court

Synonyms:

courtly; formal; stately

Context example:

a courtly gentleman

Similar:

dignified (having or expressing dignity; especially formality or stateliness in bearing or appearance)

Derivation:

court (the residence of a sovereign or nobleman)

court (the sovereign and his advisers who are the governing power of a state)

court (the family and retinue of a sovereign or prince)

courtliness (elegance suggestive of a royal court)

 Context examples 

In appearance he was a man of exceedingly aristocratic type, thin, high-nosed, and large-eyed, with languid and yet courtly manners.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A very fair and courtly maiden, or I mistake.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“I’ve seen your Royal Highness, and I have felt your Royal Highness,” said the courtly Jackson.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He made this last appeal with a courtly air of conviction which was not without its own charm.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

There we found Mr. James Wilder, demure and courtly, but with some trace of that wild terror of the night before still lurking in his furtive eyes and in his twitching features.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As they abased themselves before him, Mr. Micawber took a seat, and waved his hand in his most courtly manner.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

For, after having been accustomed several months to the sight and converse of this people, and observed every object upon which I cast mine eyes to be of proportionable magnitude, the horror I had at first conceived from their bulk and aspect was so far worn off, that if I had then beheld a company of English lords and ladies in their finery and birth-day clothes, acting their several parts in the most courtly manner of strutting, and bowing, and prating, to say the truth, I should have been strongly tempted to laugh as much at them as the king and his grandees did at me.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

“By my ten finger-bones! old John,” said Aylward, “I would give my feather-bed to see you at a spear-running. This is a most courtly and gentle sport which you have devised.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation:—"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!"

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Neither entreaty nor courtly remonstrance came from the English prince; but Sir Hugh Calverley passed silently over the border with his company, and the blazing walls of the two cities of Miranda and Puenta de la Reyna warned the unfaithful monarch that there were other metals besides gold, and that he was dealing with a man to whom it was unsafe to lie.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)