haply

[ hap-lee ]

adverbArchaic.
  1. perhaps; by chance.

Origin of haply

1
First recorded in 1325–75, haply is from the Middle English word hapliche.See hap1, -ly

Words that may be confused with haply

Words Nearby haply

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use haply in a sentence

  • He had no hopes of winning her to wife—haply no desire, since he was not a man of very great ambitions.

    St. Martin's Summer | Rafael Sabatini
  • haply Marius would have taken them and departed, and at midnight they would have been free to go from Condillac.

    St. Martin's Summer | Rafael Sabatini
  • haply her truant tresses mock Some coronal of shapelier block, To wit, the bounding billy-cock.

  • But I shall have fled, how I know not; haply mandragora will lure my weary mind to rest.

    Sinister Street, vol. 1 | Compton Mackenzie
  • It was beyond his faculties to divine that her not forsaking of Edward might haply come to mean something disastrous to him.

    Rhoda Fleming, Complete | George Meredith

British Dictionary definitions for haply

haply

/ (ˈhæplɪ) /


adverb
  1. (sentence modifier) an archaic word for perhaps

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012