eventually, adv.
(ɪˈvɛntjuːəlɪ)
[f. as prec. + -ly2.]
1. In the event of something happening.
| 1830 Foster in Life & Corr. (1846) II. 164 Some eventually possible inconvenience. |
† b. In order to provide against a contingency; in conditional terms. Obs.
| 1749 Chesterfield Lett. II. cxcvi. 239 So many of my letters have miscarried..that I am forced to repeat the same thing over and over again eventually. 1752 Ibid. IV. 3, I am sensible that they can only be met with by great accident at family sales and auctions, so I only mention the affair to you eventually. [So often in Chesterfield] 1785 Burke Sp. Nabob Arcot's Debts Wks. IV. 271 Not conditionally and eventually, but positively and authoritatively. |
† 2. In result (as opposed to intention). Obs.
| 1660 Boyle Seraphic Love Wks. 1772 I. 248, I..think that Hermione has but intentionally, not eventually disobliged you. 1706 De Foe Jure Div. Pref. 20 King James was not deposed by those, otherwise than eventually: these were the Causes of all this. 1729 Butler Serm. Wks. 1874 II. 109 Other vices eventually do mischief: this alone aims at it as an end. |
3. In the event, in the end, finally, ultimately.
| a 1680 Glanvill Serm. i. (1681) 80 If one that shall eventually be shut out, may do all this, what shall become of the generality of Religious men that never do so much? 1797 E. M. Lomax Philanthrope 278 Seneca..endeavoured to employ every day of his life as if it eventually might be his last. 1843 Miss Mitford in L'Estrange Life (1870) III. x. 179 Absentees..will doubtless eventually disappear from Ireland. 1879 Proctor Pleas. Ways Sc. v. 122 This line eventually became the brightest line of the whole spectrum. |