Adjective: brotherly
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
| Comparative | brotherlier |
| Superlative | brotherliest |
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more brotherly |
| Superlative | most brotherly |
Sample Sentences
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brotherly love
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Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate; but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity. [1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter VII, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume II, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC, page 115:]
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They are modelling in parvo around them the predestined Greater America of the mightier, holier, brotherlier comradeship which it seems America has been called into being to bring to pass for the world:— […] [1908, Richard de Bary, “Social Conversion”, in The Land of Promise: An Account of the Material and Spiritual Unity of America, London; […]: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 297:]
Adjectives inflected like brotherly
snubby,
snithy,
snorty,
snoopy,
sainty,
screwy,
scowly,
schizy,
smacky,
slimsy,
slanty,
slaggy,
songly,
soothy,
shysty,
shiply,
skeezy,
beastly,
yearny,
whip-creamy, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
From Middle English brotherly, from Old English brōþorlīċ, from Proto-West Germanic *brōþerlīk, from Proto-Germanic *brōþērlīkaz, equivalent to brother + -ly (adjectival suffix). Cognate with Dutch broederlijk (“brotherly”), German brüderlich (“brotherly”), Swedish broderlig (“brotherly”). Piecewise doublet of friarly. See: Dutch Adjectives '
broederlijk', German Adjectives '
brüderlich'.