> as lemmas

1668 H. More Divine Dialogues: Two Last Dial. v. xxvi. 388 If that be at the bottom,..their well-meaning is commendable.

1683 Apol. Protestants France vi. 88 The Clergy in the bottom judges that the Pope has Right to lay an Ecclesiastical Censure upon the Kingdom of France.

?1692 Ad Populum Phaleræ ii. 10 The last of those pretended Cheats and Shams, Doth, [by the Church,] at bottom mean King James.

1720 J. Ozell tr. R. A. de Vertot Hist. Revol. Rom. Republic III. xiv. 325 Antony, at the Bottom, very indifferent about this Revenge, pretended to be in earnest.

1780 R. B. Sheridan School for Scandal i. i. 8 Every body was sure there was some reason for it at bottom.

1809–10 S. T. Coleridge Friend (1865) 75 With whomsoever we play the deceiver and flatterer, him at the bottom we despise.

1839 C. Dickens Nicholas Nickleby xxiii. 215 He's a good pony at bottom.

1873 J. Morley Rousseau II. 171 It is bad, because it is at bottom, a superstition.

1926 A. L. Rowse Diary ?15 Mar. (2003) 13 Not that the old things really take these customs any more seriously than I do, at bottom; but it is curious to behold the mummery with which mediocrity surrounds itself.

1939 N.Y. Times 13 Aug. xi. 11/1 War scares and armament activity leading generally to rising costs, which, at the bottom, is the basic reason.

1979 P. Larkin Required Writing (1983) 81 At bottom poetry, like all art, is inextricably bound up with giving pleasure.

2015 Univ. Chicago Law Rev. 82 440 The panel offered numerous answers but, at bottom, it had two basic objections.