Meddlingly

Part of speech: adverb

Definitions

1. In a way that interferes intrusively with other people's affairs, business or choices, often without being asked to
2. Acting with an unwelcome tendency to poke into and alter matters that do not concern one, in an officious fashion
3. Through intrusive interference in someone else's concerns, pushing into situations where one's involvement is unwanted

Etymology: "Meddlingly" is an adverb built by adding the suffix "-ly" to "meddling," the present participle of "meddle." The suffix "-ly" comes from Old English "-lic," a word meaning "body" or "form" that gradually came to mark adjectives, and then adverbs, describing manner. So "meddlingly" describes doing something in the manner of someone who meddles, that is, interfering in matters that are not one's own business. The base word "meddle" has its own history. It was borrowed from Old French "medler," meaning to mix or mingle, which itself traces back to Latin "misculare," to mix. Early English uses carried that sense of mixing things together, and the sense of interfering in another's affairs developed later, so the modern meaning is a figurative extension of "mixing in."

Synonyms: intrusively, interferingly, nosily

Antonyms: unobtrusively, discreetly