Warly

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. In Scots usage, describing someone concerned with earthly affairs and worldly matters rather than spiritual ones
2. Used in Scottish dialect to describe a person who is preoccupied with material concerns and everyday worldly life
3. A Scots term for being worldly, meaning absorbed in the practical business and pleasures of this earthly life

Etymology: "Warly" is a word most readers will not recognise, and its history is a plain one: it is a compound of "war" and the suffix "-ly". The "-ly" ending here is the same one found in "manly" or "friendly", and when attached to "war" it produced an adjective meaning having to do with war or warlike. The word arrived in English in its Middle English form "werrely", which carried the same sense of martial or belonging to war. Because the parts are so transparent, the word did not undergo any dramatic shift in meaning. Its interest lies mainly in how simply English could build new adjectives by adding "-ly" to nouns, a pattern that produced many everyday words such as "lovely" and "daily" alongside rarer formations like this one.