VERILY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does verily mean? 

• VERILY (adverb)
  The adverb VERILY has 1 sense:

1. in truth; certainly

  Familiarity information: VERILY used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VERILY (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In truth; certainly

Context example:

trust in the Lord...and verily thou shalt be fed

Domain usage:

archaicism; archaism (the use of an archaic expression)

 Context examples 

I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest woman the sun shines on.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Verily, that is the way of the world.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Verily, they are heathens and barbarians, cried the man; mad, howling, drunken barbarians!

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“It's one of her bad days. If the fire was to go out, through any accident, I verily believe she'd go out too, and never come to life again.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His behaviour to myself has been scandalous; but I verily believe I could forgive him anything and everything, rather than his disappointing the hopes and disgracing the memory of his father.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

I had hardly got the paper, however—which was, as I had expected, in one of them—when the two Cunninghams were on me, and would, I verily believe, have murdered me then and there but for your prompt and friendly aid.

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

You are to thank your brother and me for the scheme; it darted into our heads at breakfast-time, I verily believe at the same instant; and we should have been off two hours ago if it had not been for this detestable rain.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Nothing angered and mortified me so much as the queen’s dwarf; who being of the lowest stature that was ever in that country (for I verily think he was not full thirty feet high), became so insolent at seeing a creature so much beneath him, that he would always affect to swagger and look big as he passed by me in the queen’s antechamber, while I was standing on some table talking with the lords or ladies of the court, and he seldom failed of a smart word or two upon my littleness; against which I could only revenge myself by calling him brother, challenging him to wrestle, and such repartees as are usually in the mouths of court pages.

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

I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said—You're noan so far fro' Thornfield now.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)