FALSELY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does falsely mean? 

• FALSELY (adverb)
  The adverb FALSELY has 2 senses:

1. in an insincerely false manner

2. in an incorrect manner

  Familiarity information: FALSELY used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FALSELY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In an insincerely false manner

Context example:

a seduction on my part would land us with the necessity to rise, bathe and dress, chat falsely about this and that, and emerge into the rest of the evening as though nothing had happened

Pertainym:

false (deliberately deceptive)

Sense 2

Meaning:

In an incorrect manner

Synonyms:

falsely; incorrectly

Context example:

to credit Lister with the first formulation of the basic principle of stratigraphy would be to bestow credit falsely

Pertainym:

false (arising from error)

 Context examples 

Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

You treated me falsely, ungratefully, and cruelly.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Catherine, observing that Isabella's eyes were continually bent towards one door or the other, as in eager expectation, and remembering how often she had been falsely accused of being arch, thought the present a fine opportunity for being really so; and therefore gaily said, Do not be uneasy, Isabella, James will soon be here.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Yet such must be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

That the said Quinbus Flestrin, contrary to the duty of a faithful subject, is now preparing to make a voyage to the court and empire of Blefuscu, for which he has received only verbal license from his imperial majesty; and, under colour of the said license, does falsely and traitorously intend to take the said voyage, and thereby to aid, comfort, and abet the emperor of Blefuscu, so lately an enemy, and in open war with his imperial majesty aforesaid.

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