archly

arch +‎ -ly

archly (comparative more archly, superlative most archly)

1. In an arch manner; slyly.
   • 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:

     Phoebe lay down by me, and ask'd me archly if, now that I had seen the enemy, and fully considered him, I was still afraid of him?

   • 2022, China Miéville, chapter 6, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto, →OCLC:

     Though he intends it destructively, Rothbard is right that there are relations between the millennial hope for justice he archly calls KGE—Kingdom of God on Earth—and communism.

archly (not comparable)

1. In the form of an arch.
   • 1984 April 14, Freddie Greenfield, “Spoiling the View”, in Gay Community News, page 19:

     My eyebrows recently plucked archly.