WRETCHEDLY

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In a wretched manner

Example:

'I can't remember who I am,' I said, wretchedly

Classified under:

Adverbs

Pertainym:

wretched (deserving or inciting pity)

Credits

Context examples:

Wretchedly did he feel, that with all the cost and care of an anxious and expensive education, he had brought up his daughters without their understanding their first duties, or his being acquainted with their character and temper.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

She should see them henceforward with the closest observance; and wretchedly as she had hitherto misunderstood even those she was watching, she did not know how to admit that she could be blinded here.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

You must think wretchedly indeed of Willoughby, if, after all that has openly passed between them, you can doubt the nature of the terms on which they are together.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

“Did not you ask it for anything?” said the wife, “we live very wretchedly here, in this nasty dirty pigsty; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug little cottage.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I recall him bending his aching head, supported on his bony hand, over the book on his desk, and wretchedly endeavouring to get on with his tiresome work, amidst an uproar that might have made the Speaker of the House of Commons giddy.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)