abruptly, adv.
(əˈbrʌptlɪ)
[f. abrupt a. + -ly2.]
In an abrupt manner. Hence,
1. With a sudden break off, without warning or preparation, suddenly.
| 1590 Greene Neuer too late (1600) 18 And so as I begun passionately, I breake off abruptly. Farewell. 1670 Milton P.R. ii. 10 Now missing him their joy so lately found, So lately found, and so abruptly gone. 1783 Cowper Lett. Nov. 24 Wks. 1876, 149 Your mother wants room for a postscript so my lecture must conclude abruptly. 1838 Dickens Nich. Nick. (C.D. ed.) xxii. 171 ‘Will you let me take the bundle now?’ asked Nicholas, abruptly changing the theme. 1862 Ansted Channel Isl. (ed. 2) i. i. 3 Fifty miles more to the east..the French coast abruptly bends round to the north. |
2. Interruptedly, with sudden breaks.
| 1607 Topsell Four-footed Beasts (1673) 586 The body [of the Civet-cat]..having divers & sundry black spots scattered abruptly throughout. 1618 Bolton Florus Pref., The varietie of matter makes the minde abruptly flit from one thing to another. 1850 Lynch Theoph. Trinal. ix. 162 The generations do not succed each other abruptly, but pass one into the other like the pictures in dissolving views. |
3. Precipitously.
| 1623 Bingham Xenophon 59 The Carduchan Mountaines being abruptly steepe, lay directly hanging ouer the same Riuer. 1877 Kinglake Crimea (ed. 6) III. i. 3 It is the high land nearest to the shore which falls most abruptly. |
4. Bot. With a sudden termination; as abruptly pinnate, when several pairs of leaflets are formed without an intermediate one at the end.
| 1870 Hooker Stud. Flora 183 Scabiosa succisa..Rootstock short, abruptly truncate. Ibid. 18 Fumaria densiflora..lower petal abruptly dilated at the tip. |