happily

[hap-uh-lee] /ˈhæp ə li/
adverb
1.
in a happy manner; with pleasure.
2.
by good fortune; luckily; providentially.
3.
felicitously; aptly; appropriately:
a happily turned phrase.
Origin
1300-50; Middle English; see happy, -ly
Related forms
overhappily, adverb
Can be confused
hapless, haply, happily.
Examples from the web for happily
  • The staff in all of my enterprises who work tirelessly and yet happily for the pleasure of others.
  • Bull sharks happily tolerate the murky water found in estuaries and bays.
  • Contrasting elements coexist happily in this garden.
  • Never were two statesmen more happily matched for the noble game that was intrusted to them.
  • They will happily share information with others as long as certain social norms are met.
  • Customers happily munch on the dripping creations as juice spills their mouths, over their faces.
  • In some of the more popular places, the local crowds spill happily out into the street.
  • Dogs will happily share arbors, pergolas, and other shade structures with their owners.
  • They can survive quite happily in a tank with no access to land and spend a lot of time down the bottom of the tank.
  • How good research survives, and bad research gets happily buried in the dustbin of history.
Word Origin and History for happily
adv.

mid-14c., "by chance or accident," from happy + -ly (2). Meaning "fortunate, lucky" is late 14c.; that of "appropriately" is from 1570s. Happily ever after recorded by 1853.

happily in Technology


Of software, used to emphasise that a program is unaware of some important fact about its environment, either because it has been fooled into believing a lie, or because it doesn't care. The sense of "happy" here is not that of elation, but rather that of blissful ignorance. "The program continues to run, happily unaware that its output is going to /dev/null."
[Jargon File]

Idioms and Phrases with happily

happily

see: live happily ever after