goodly
Americanadjective
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goodlier,
comparative
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goodliest
superlative
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of good or substantial size, amount, etc..
a goodly sum.
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of good or fine appearance.
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Archaic. of a good quality.
a goodly gift.
adjective
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considerable
a goodly amount of money
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obsolete attractive, pleasing, or fine
a goodly man
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of goodly
before 1000; Middle English; Old English gōdlīc. See good, -ly
Explanation
A goodly amount of something is plenty of it. If you bake a goodly number of brownies for a bake sale, there are more than enough. The adjective goodly can describe a large quantity and also a large size: "You described your house as tiny, but it's actually a goodly size!" You might bring home a goodly amount of spinach from the farmer's market, or take a new job that comes with a goodly increase in salary. Goodly comes from an Old English root word, godlic, "excellent, good, or fair."
Vocabulary lists containing goodly
The Tempest
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Brian's Winter
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"Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
If you don’t pay at least a goodly chunk of your 2023 taxes by then, you will be penalized automatically, even if you file for an extension by Monday night.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 12, 2024
"The last time we had goodly numbers... was round about 2017, so it's great to see them now."
From BBC ● Jan. 11, 2024
I also disappeared for a goodly while into Stephen Amidon’s taut domestic thriller “Locust Lane,” which is just coming out this month.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 10, 2023
“For what more august, more charming and useful, than the culture and preservation of such goodly plantations: That shade to our grand-children give,” the British forester John Evelyn wrote in the 1660s, quoting Virgil.
From New York Times ● Jul. 13, 2022
“We’ve come a goodly way since early morning,” said John.
From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli
But the guests were young, strong of health and appetite, and no king's table could have supplied goodlier food.
From The Lucky Piece A Tale of the North Woods by Albert Bigelow Paine
Thorkell was a great man and a lordly; and no man was goodlier than Bolli, nor of gentler breeding; Thord Ingwin's son was the most discreet of them all, a wise man in the law.
From Epic and Romance Essays on Medieval Literature by W. P. Ker
Solomon in all his glory had been no goodlier sight; and if she toiled or spun to achieve it, her state, I should say, is by so much the more gracious.
From In a Green Shade A Country Commentary by Maurice Henry Hewlett
“A choice young man and a goodly; there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he; from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people.”
From The Expositor's Bible: The First Book of Samuel by William Garden Blaikie
Nogent, he had called the damsel at the font, and the dansellon was named Gugemar—no goodlier might be found in any realm.
From French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France by Marie de France
Virginia “is wonderfull fertile and very rich,” he told the company, with “a goodly River called Patomack, upon the borders whereof there are grown the goodliest Trees.”
From Washington Post ● Oct. 26, 2017
From the outside Satan can see "higher than that wall a circling row / Of goodliest trees loaden with fairest fruit".
From The Guardian ● Jan. 29, 2011
It was noysed in the Court how thys valiaunt Knight Vlrico, had in Boeme the fayrest and goodliest Lady to his Wife that liued eyther in Boeme, or Hungary.
From The Palace of Pleasure Volume 3 by William Painter
I left there the goodliest company conceivable: Rogers, Moore, Macaulay, Charles Austen, Mr. Dundas, Charles Greville, and Westmacott: so much for the mankind.
From Records of Later Life by Fanny Kemble
The same construction is found in Milton’s “Adam, the goodliest man of men since born, His sons, the fairest of her daughters, Eve.”
From The Expositor's Bible: Colossians and Philemon by Alexander Maclaren
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
