dreamilyadv.
/ˈdriːmᵻli/, U.S. /ˈdrimᵻli/ In the manner of a dream; hazily, ethereally. Also: in the manner of someone in a dream or reverie; abstractedly, musingly.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > attention and judgement > inattention > mental wandering > abstraction, absent-mindedness > [adverb]
absentlya1631
amusively1776
abstractedly1827
absent-mindedly1857
dreamily1861
preoccupiedly1884
1817 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Oct. 88/1 I closed my eyes, that..I might gaze and gaze On that transcendant landscape, as it lay Dreamily imaged in my happy soul.
1861 T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxf. I. x. 178 Looking dreamily into the embers.
a1865 E. C. Gaskell Wives & Daughters (1866) I. xxvi. 298 Her dreamily abstracted eyes.
1907 R. Muther Hist. Mod. Painting xvii. 385 The little shepherdess sitting dreamily on a bundle of straw near her flock at pasture.
1965 Listener 27 May 805/3 The penultimate chorus..rocks dreamily to and fro over a pedal bass.
1986 P. Conroy Prince of Tides (1987) xv. 332 I could see..the baroque light of chandeliers dreamily illuminating the rooms behind me.
2000 K. Atkinson Emotionally Weird 73 ‘St Andrews,’ Professor Cousins carried on dreamily, ‘my old alma mater.’
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
adv.1817