loyal
[loi-uh l]
- faithful to one's sovereign, government, or state: a loyal subject.
- faithful to one's oath, commitments, or obligations: to be loyal to a vow.
- faithful to any leader, party, or cause, or to any person or thing conceived as deserving fidelity: a loyal friend.
- characterized by or showing faithfulness to commitments, vows, allegiance, obligations, etc.: loyal conduct.
Origin of loyal
Synonyms
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.comAntonyms
1. faithless, treacherous.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for loyally
Contemporary Examples
When it does, Obama is going to need Democratic legislators and liberals across the country firmly and loyally in his corner.
And Netanyahu has loyally followed that advice since entering politics a quarter century ago.
Any black officer in uniform, no matter how loyally he had served the republic, was killed or thrown in chains.
Mike Lofgren loyally served the GOP on Capitol Hill for 28 years.
Not since Carmela Soprano has a wife stood so loyally behind her n'er-do-well husband as Denise Richards has in recent months.
Historical Examples
"He would have won had I been on his back," declared the girl, loyally.
ThoroughbredsW. A. Fraser
His emperor had feasted, flattered, and decorated him, and he was loyally grateful.
Stay'd the wheels at CogolettoAnd drank, and loyally drank, to him.
How she had disliked improvements, yet how loyally she had accepted them when made!
Howards EndE. M. Forster
But then, has he not loyally engaged to support the Establishment?
Leading Articles on Various SubjectsHugh Miller
loyal
- having or showing continuing allegiance
- faithful to one's country, government, etc
- of or expressing loyalty
Word Origin
C16: from Old French loial, leial, from Latin lēgālis legal
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for loyally
loyal
adj.
1530s, in reference to subjects of sovereigns or governments, from Middle French loyal, from Old French loial, leal "of good quality; faithful; honorable; law-abiding; legitimate, born in wedlock," from Latin legalem, from lex "law." In most cases it has displaced Middle English leal, which is from the same French source. Sense development in English is feudal, via notion of "faithful in carrying out legal obligations." In a general sense (of dogs, lovers, etc.), from c.1600. As a noun meaning "those who are loyal" from 1530s (originally often in plural).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper