Definition of "happily"

happily

/ˈhæp.ə.li/

adverb
comparative more happily, superlative most happily
1. In a happy or cheerful manner; with happiness.
  Quotations
  And thus I have given the first part of a life of fortune and adventure, a life of Providence's chequer-work, and of a variety which the world will seldom be able to shew the like of: beginning foolishly, but closing much more happily than any part of it ever gave me leave so much as to hope for.
  1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], 3rd edition, London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], published 1719, page 311
2. By good chance; fortunately, successfully.
  Quotations
  Watt wore, on his feet, a boot, brown in colour, and a shoe, happily of a brownish colour also.
  1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, Olympia Press
3. With good will; in all happiness; willingly.
4. (archaic) By chance; perhaps.
  Quotations
  And who knoweth whether a thousand yeares hence a third opinion will rise, which happily shall overthrow these two precedents?
  1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]