respectfully

adverb

1. 1

   In a respectful manner.

   York got down and said very respectfully, "I beg your pardon, my lady, but these horses have not been reined up for three years, and my lord said it would be safer to bring them to it by degrees; but if your ladyship pleases, I can take them up a little more."

   There is something wonderful and sad about Ohio around Christmastime — maybe the reasons are the licentious, Yukon sleddog cold and the buildings on the main streets of college towns standing respectfully buttressed with graceful wings...

   There are, here and there, scattered throughout the scherzo, uncouthnesses of harmony and false relationships which hypercritical ferreters-out of blemishes might perhaps carp at but which we pass by respectfully[…]

   Fr. Greeley's specialty is robust, respectfully kinkless sex bathed in a rosy glow of soon-to-be-blessed romantic love.

Forms

comparative

more respectfully

superlative

most respectfully