mazilyadv.
/ˈmeɪzᵻli/, U.S. /ˈmeɪzᵻli/ Chiefly poetic and literary.
In a confused or convoluted manner; as if in a maze.
ΘΚΠ
the world > movement > motion in a certain direction > change of direction of movement > [adverb] > not in a straight course > in a winding course
aboutOE
aboutsa1387
windingly1576
zigzag1754
mazily1845
zag1906
zigzaggedly1921
the world > space > shape > curvature > series of curves > [adverb] > in many or winding curves > like a maze or labyrinth
labyrinthally1669
mazily1845
1845 W. J. Linton Bob-thin 18 Through their blooms the road doth glide, Serpent-like and mazily.
1855 S. Brooks Aspen Court I. x. 144 Those mazily cut Valentines one sees in windows.
1863 Ld. Tennyson Milton in Cornhill Mag. Dec. 707 The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring.
1883 Overland Monthly Sept. 309/2 Eastward the great plateau of central Oregon, with its bitter lakes and sunken rivers..stretches mazily away.
1941 M. F. K. Fisher Three Swiss Inns in As They Were (1982) 50 We went along roads, mazily, that led where we did not want to go at all.
1993 J. Peck Argura 26 High meadow: poppy blots Mazily responsory To our star's impress.
2002 New Yorker 2 Dec. 119/2 ‘The Quiet American’ may end with a montage of headlines, leading us mazily from the era of Fowler and Pyle to the landing of American troops in Vietnam.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2001; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adv.1845