summarily

summary +‎ -ly

• IPA^(key): /səˈmɛɹɪli/, /səˈmæɹɪli/

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summarily (comparative more summarily, superlative most summarily)

1. (manner) In a summary manner.

   They were fired summarily at a single plant-wide meeting.

   • 1849, Charles Fitzgerald, Ordinance enabling transportation of convicts to Western Australia:

     […] and any offender found with firearms in his possession contrary to this Ordinance, shall be deemed to be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being thereof summarily convicted before any one or more Justice or Justices of the Peace, of being so illegally at large as aforesaid, shall be kept to hard labour on any of the Roads or Public Works of the said colony, for any time not exceeding three calendar months.

   • c. 1885-1900, John Knox Laughton, “Rowley, William (1690?-1768)”, in Dictionary of National Biography:

     […] but in July 1745 he was summarily ordered by the secretary of state, the Duke of Newcastle, to return to England.

   • 1955, Hugo Black, In re Murchison: Opinion of the Court, Supreme Court of the United States:

     It is true that contempt committed in a trial courtroom can under some circumstances be punished summarily by the trial judge.

   • 2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway wrecker?”, in RAIL, number 978, page 52:

     And it [bribery and fraud] didn't stop there. Both Sir Winston Churchill and later Labour leader Michael Foot were allegedly regular recipients of private cheques that would have seen them summarily sacked in this present age of transparency.

2. (duration) Over a short period of time, briefly.

   He covered the topic summarily in an answer to a question.

   • 1950, Marcus, transl. Dods, chapter 14, in The City of God, book XX, translation of original by Augustine of Hippo:

     After this mention of the closing persecution, he summarily indicates all that the devil, and the city of which he is the prince, shall suffer in the last judgment.

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 168:

     They didn't get shot to death in hold-ups, strangled to death in rapes, stabbed to death in saloons, bludgeoned to death with axes by parents or children or die summarily by some other act of God.

• (in a summary manner): unceremoniously
• (over a short period of time): ephemerally, fleetingly, transiently; see also Thesaurus:temporarily

• “summarily”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “summarily”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.