progressivelyadv.

1620 T. Granger Syntagma Logicum 294 But the conforming, adapting, and disposing of them being inuented progressiuely, recedeth from vniuersals..to the most specials, or indiuiduals.

1694 W. Holder Disc. Time vi. 87 The reason why they fall in that order.., from the greatest Epacts progressively to the least.

a1716 R. South Serm. Several Occasions (1744) VII. 5 Nothing that adequately fills a place, can move in that place, unless it moves circularly, but progressively or in a direct line it is impossible.

1722 D. Defoe Jrnl. Plague Year 214 It was indeed a merciful Disposition of God, that as the Plague began at one End of the Town first..so it proceeded progressively to other Parts, and did not come on this way.

1788 J. May Jrnl. 4 Aug. (1873) (modernized text) 96 Mountains..rising progressively to view.

1817 R. Owen New View of Society (new ed.) 181 Reason..makes her advance by slow degrees, and progressively substantiates one truth of high import after another.

1851 N. Hawthorne House of Seven Gables i. 24 They marked out the cleared spaces, and..villages and towns, and calculated the progressively increasing value of the territory.

1902 W. James Varieties Relig. Experience xiv. 328 Nothing is more striking than the secular alteration that goes on in the moral and religious tone of men, as their insight into nature and their social arrangements progressively develop.

1946 A. Nelson Princ. Agric. Bot. xix. 362 The plant progressively moves forward, growing at the ‘head’ and dying at the ‘tail’.

1990 Sci. News 4 Aug. 79/1 Marfan's syndrome, an inherited disorder that leaves one in 10,000 Americans with progressively faulty skeletons, hearts, eyes and lungs.

2002 M. Rendell Kings of Mountains (2003) ix. 153 The [cocaine] carrier, or ‘mule’, must prepare for weeks, swallowing progressively larger eggs to habituate his gullet and stomach.

1910 O. S. Marden Miracle of Right Thought iii. 46 The man who would succeed must think success, must think upward. He must think progressively, creatively, constructively, inventively, and, above all, optimistically.

1940 College Eng. 1 569 You have got to use your intelligence, which, after you have been progressively educated, you probably no longer have.

1987 Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc. 77 92 Did the social scientists ‘think progressively’ before the creative artist or writer have begun to think progressively?

2005 Sunday Herald Sun (Melbourne) (Nexis) 4 July 19 Instead of just managing the risk of drought, we should farm and plan progressively in a way that will yield successful outcomes, even in very dry seasons.