Literary notes about devoutly (AI summary)
The term devoutly has been used by writers to intensify both religious piety and earnest human emotion, lending a weight of sincerity or ceremonial gravity to an action or sentiment. In many works, it enhances descriptions of prayer or worship—for instance, prayers are offered devoutly to God or sacred images ([1], [2], [3])—while at other times it underscores personal hope or an ironic self-assurance in everyday acts ([4], [5], [6]). Whether evoking the traditional ritual of crossing oneself before an altar ([7], [8], [9]) or expressing an intense personal belief and expectation ([10], [11], [12]), devoutly functions as a versatile adverb that helps bridge the sacred with the secular in literature.
- And then he prayed devoutly to God that he would vouchsafe to suffer him go up.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville - After devoutly praying together, they sung the 31st psalm.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - And then the priest and the son go together before the idol and kneel full devoutly and ask of the idol their demand.
— from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville - Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his recovered self-possession, he thought, “There is but another now,” and turned to walk again.
— from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens - "I believe devoutly in a natural difference of vocation.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - Perhaps, however, you devoutly believe in the devil, and imagine, to shift the question, that he may assist his votaries?
— from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft - “The Lord bless you for a darlint,” cried the old woman, devoutly kissing the velvet cheek of the little fellow sleeping upon her lap.
— from Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie - replied Tim’s wife, dropping her knitting, and devoutly making the sign of the cross upon her forehead.
— from Aesop's Fables by Aesop - “O yes, Mas’r,” said Topsy, with another twinkle, her hands still devoutly folded.
— from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe - It is plain I have some distance to go yet before I attain that devoutly desired consummation.
— from Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery - “I hope that NO one will ever again ask me to marry him as long as I live,” sobbed poor Anne, devoutly believing that she meant it.
— from Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery - With the true zeal of an editor and a patriot, he devoutly justifies or excuses the characters of his countrymen.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
