1
: in an arch manner
2
: extremely
archly conservative
Synonyms
- achingly
- almighty
- awful
- awfully
- badly
- beastly
- blisteringly
- bone
- colossally
- corking
- cracking
- damn
- damned
- dang
- deadly
- desperately
- eminently
- enormously
- especially
- ever
- exceedingly
- exceeding
- extra
- extremely
- fabulously
- fantastically
- far
- fiercely
- filthy
- frightfully
- full
- greatly
- heavily
- highly
- hugely
- immensely
- incredibly
- intensely
- jolly
- majorly
- mightily
- mighty
- monstrous [chiefly dialect]
- mortally
- most
- much
- particularly
- passing
- rattling
- real
- really
- right
- roaring
- roaringly
- seriously
- severely
- so
- sore
- sorely
- spanking
- specially
- stinking
- such
- super
- supremely
- surpassingly
- terribly
- that
- thumping
- too
- unco
- uncommonly
- vastly
- very
- vitally
- way
- whacking
- wicked
- wildly
Examples of archly in a Sentence
an archly competitive young executive
Recent Examples on the Web
Repeatedly rising to the challenge of maneuvering through the film’s myriad plot twists and tonal shifts, McKellen is by turns imperiously hilarious, archly devious, forlornly melancholy and pathetically desperate.
—
Joe Leydon, Variety, 13 Jan. 2025
In other contexts, Cooper and Carlson might have decried such an approach—an archly postmodern attitude in which all facts are relative, all orthodoxies suspect.
—Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 5 Sep. 2024
The gentrifying Reagan years that followed gave rise to archly analytic work addressing institutional power.
—Nancy Princenthal, New York Times, 16 May 2024
That’s essentially what happened when a Northern California man died in early December — a demise that his brother archly and elegantly recounted in an obituary published in The Times.
—James Rainey, Los Angeles Times, 23 Dec. 2023
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Joe Leydon, Variety, 13 Jan. 2025
In other contexts, Cooper and Carlson might have decried such an approach—an archly postmodern attitude in which all facts are relative, all orthodoxies suspect.
—Megan Garber, The Atlantic, 5 Sep. 2024
The gentrifying Reagan years that followed gave rise to archly analytic work addressing institutional power.
—Nancy Princenthal, New York Times, 16 May 2024
That’s essentially what happened when a Northern California man died in early December — a demise that his brother archly and elegantly recounted in an obituary published in The Times.
—James Rainey, Los Angeles Times, 23 Dec. 2023
See all Example Sentences for archly
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Cite this Entry
“Archly.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/archly. Accessed 31 Jan. 2025.
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