Definition of "privily"
privily
adverb
comparative more privily, superlative most privily
(archaic) Secretly, in secret; in a private manner; privately.
Quotations
Gaveston: Why do you not commit him to the Tower?King Edward: I dare not, for the people love him well.Gaveston: Why, then we'll have him privily made away.
1594 (first publication), Christopher Marlow[e], The Trovblesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edvvard the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, [Act II]
Thou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk, / And tell him privily of our intent.
c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii]
[…] to cause that foaming in their mouthes, which is fearefull to behold by the standers by, they have this trick, privily to convey a peece of white soape into one corner of their Jawes, which causeth that froth to come boyling forth.
1608, Thomas Dekker, “The Belman of London”, in The Guls Hornbook and The Belman of London, J.M. Dent & Sons, published 1936, page 100
Item, because in the convents of women, men come not but underhand, privily, and by stealth; it was therefore enacted, that in this house there shall be no women in case there be not men, nor men in case there be not women.
1653, François Rabelais, translated by Thomas Urquhart, The Works of Rabelais, London: Chatto & Windus, published 1873, Book I, Chapter LII, p. 105
That if any person shall be convicted of feloniously stealing any of the before mentioned articles from the person of another, whether privily and without his knowledge, or openly and avowedly before his face, he shall be deemed guilty of an higher species of larceny […]
1785, “An Act for the punishing and preventing of Larcenies”, in The Perpetual Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, from the Establishment of its Constitution in the Year 1780, to the End of the Year 1800, volume 1, Boston, published 1801, page 23