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Fatally vs Deadly - What's the difference?

fatally | deadly |

As adverbs the difference between fatally and deadly

is that fatally is in a fatal manner; lethally while deadly is fatally, mortally.

As an adjective deadly is

subject to death; mortal.

fatally

English

Adverb

(en adverb)
  • In a fatal manner; lethally.
  • * 1599: William Shakespeare, The Life of King Henry V [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=487393672&tag=Shakespeare,+William,+1564-1616:+The+Life+of+King+Henry+V,+1599&query=+fatally&id=MobHen5]
    • Witness our too much memorable shame
    When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
    And all our princes captiv'd by the hand
    Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;
  • * 1918: H. B. Irving, A Book of Remarkable Criminals [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=372961222&tag=Irving,+H.B.:+A+Book+of+Remarkable+Criminals,+1918&query=+fatally&id=IrvBook]
    • He told Peace that he did not believe his statement that he had fired the pistol merely to frighten the constable; had not Robinson guarded his head with his arm he would have been wounded fatally , and Peace condemned to death.
  • Ultimately, with finality or irrevocability, moving towards the demise of something.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=April 15 , author=Phil McNulty , title=Tottenham 1-5 Chelsea , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Chelsea will point to that victory margin as confirmation of their superiority - but Spurs will complain their hopes of turning the game around were damaged fatally by Atkinson's decision.}}
  • * 1854: Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=text&offset=619159980&textreg=1&query=+fatally&id=ThoWald]
  • *:"They pretend," as I hear, "that the verses of Kabir have four different senses; illusion, spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas;" but in this part of the world it is considered a ground for complaint if a man's writings admit of more than one interpretation. While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally ?
  • Fatedly; according to the dictates of fate or doom.
  • * 1919: Booth Tarkington, The Flirt [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=text&offset=609876363&textreg=1&query=+fatally&id=TarFlir]
    • He was a slender young man in hot black clothes; he wore the unfacaded collar fatally and unanimously adopted by all adam's-apple men of morals; he was washed, fair, flat-skulled, clean-minded, and industrious; and the only noise of any kind he ever made in the world was on Sunday.

    Synonyms

    * mortally

    deadly

    English

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • (lb) Subject to death; mortal.
  • *:
  • *:And whan he cam to the sacrament of the masse / and had done / anone he called Galahad and sayd to hym come forthe the seruaunt of Ihesu cryst and thou shalt see that thou hast moche desyred to see / & thenne he beganne to tremble ryght hard / whan the dedely flesshe beganne to beholde the spyrytuel thynges
  • *Wyclif Bible, (w) i. 23
  • *:The image of a deadly man.
  • Causing death; lethal.
  • Aiming or willing to destroy; implacable; desperately hostile.
  • :
  • *(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • *:Thy assailant is quick, skillful, and deadly .
  • (lb) Very accurate (of aiming with a bow, firearm, etc.).
  • *
  • *:But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶, and a 'bead' could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the fogger behind the hedge, little dreaming that the deadly tube was levelled at them.
  • (lb) Very boring.
  • *
  • *:“I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly , idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, the worn-out, passionless men, the enervated matrons of the summer capital,!”
  • (lb) Excellent, awesome, cool.

    • Derived terms

    * deadly sin

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • (obsolete) Fatally, mortally.
  • *, Folio Society, 2006, p.16:
    • perceiving himselfe deadly wounded by a shot received in his body, being by his men perswaded to come off and retire himselfe from out the throng, answered, he would not now so neere his end, begin to turn his face from his enemie
  • In a way which suggests death.
    • Her face suddenly became deadly white.
  • Extremely.
    • deadly weary — Orrery.
    so deadly cunning a man — Arbuthnot.

    Related terms

    * dead