Definition of "wanly"

She has the faded look of a St. James's Street illumination, as it may be seen of an early morning, when half the lamps are out, and the others are blinking wanly, as if they were about to vanish like ghosts before the dawn.

1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 48, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848

Having turned about, he kept his horse to a walk, and at this gait the sleighbells tinkled but intermittently. Gleaming wanly through the whitish vapour that kept rising from the trotter’s body and flanks, they were like tiny fog-bells, and made the only sounds in a great winter silence.

1918, Booth Tarkington, chapter 7, in The Magnificent Ambersons‎

[…] [he] spent a lot of time wanly imagining how warm and secure marriage must make men feel […]

1988, Edmund White, chapter 5, in The Beautiful Room is Empty, New York: Vintage International, published 1994