1.
[syn: happily, merrily, mirthfully, gayly, blithely, jubilantly]
2. in an unexpectedly lucky way;
- Example: "happily he was not injured"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Happily \Hap"pi*ly\ (h[a^]p"p[i^]*l[y^]), adv. [From Happy.]
1. By chance; peradventure; haply. [Obs.] --Piers Plowman.
[1913 Webster]
2. By good fortune; fortunately; luckily.
[1913 Webster]
Preferred by conquest, happily o'erthrown. --Waller.
[1913 Webster]
3. In a happy manner or state; in happy circumstances; as, he
lived happily with his wife.
[1913 Webster]
4. With address or dexterity; gracefully; felicitously; in a
manner to insure success; with success.
[1913 Webster]
Formed by thy converse, happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe. --Pope.
Syn: Fortunately; luckily; successfully; prosperously;
contentedly; dexterously; felicitously.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
happily
adv 1: in a joyous manner; "they shouted happily" [syn:
happily, merrily, mirthfully, gayly, blithely,
jubilantly] [ant: unhappily]
2: in an unexpectedly lucky way; "happily he was not injured"
[ant: sadly, unhappily]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
43 Moby Thesaurus words for "happily":
agreeably, airily, blessedly, blissfully, blithely, cheerfully,
cheerily, delightedly, ecstatically, elatedly, enthusiastically,
exultantly, favorably, fortunately, gaily, genially, gladly,
gleefully, heartily, hopefully, irrepressibly, jauntily, joyfully,
jubilantly, lightly, luckily, merrily, opportunely, optimistically,
peaceably, pleasantly, propitiously, prosperously, providentially,
rapturously, rhapsodically, satisfyingly, smilingly, successfully,
swimmingly, willingly, with good cheer, with pleasure
The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):
happily
adv.
Of software, used to emphasize 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.?
Also used to suggest that a program or device would really rather be doing
something destructive, and is being given an opportunity to do so. ?If you
enter an O here instead of a zero, the program will happily erase all your
data.? Nevertheless, use of this term implies a basically benign attitude
towards the program: It didn't mean any harm, it was just eager to do its
job. We'd like to be angry at it but we shouldn't, we should try to
understand it instead. The adjective ?cheerfully? is often used in exactly
the same way.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
happily
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]