different between boastly vs beastly

English

Etymology

From boast +? -ly.

Adverb

boastly (comparative more boastly, superlative most boastly)

1. (rare, nonstandard) In a boastful manner; boastfully, boastingly.
   • 1953, A Bibliographical Study of William Blake's Note-Book, page 43:

     But a significant phenomenon observed throughout the whole is that these poems underwent copious deletions and emendations by the hand of Blake, who, ten years later, boastly told of his "long Poem ... on One Grand Theme, Similar to Hom,er's Illiad or Milton's Paradise Lost"; […]

Usage notes

• Generally an error made by non-native speakers.

English

Etymology

From Middle English beestly, bestely, beastelich, equivalent to beast +? -ly. Compare West Frisian bistachtich (“beastly”), Dutch beestachtig (“beastly”), German biestig (“beastly”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bi?stli/
• Rhymes: -i?stli

Adjective

beastly (comparative beastlier or more beastly, superlative beastliest or most beastly)

1. (Britain) Pertaining to, or having the form, nature, or habits of, a beast.
2. (Britain) Similar to the nature of a beast; contrary to the nature and dignity of man

   Synonyms: brutal, filthy

3. (Britain, dated) Abominable.

4. (of computing hardware) Powerful, having a powerful appearance
   • 2010, January 11, Matthew DeCarlo, “Silverstone mini-ITX case can fit Radeon HD 5970”, TechSpot:

     In addition to a Core i7-860 with a full-sized heatsink and 4GB of DDR3 RAM, the company showed its SUGO SG07 housing today's most beastly graphics card, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970, which is about 30cm long.

   • 2014, March 21, Tycho de Feijter, “Hummer H2 is a Big Black Beast in the Rain in China”, CarNewsChina.com:

     A very big, very black, and very beastly Hummer H2, Spotted in China in in the rain the great city of Zigong in Sichuan Province.

   • 2018, October 16, Chris Smith, “Huawei just unveiled the most beastly Android phone the world has ever seen”, BGR:

     Huawei’s Mate 20 phones have instantly become the best iPhone XS rivals out there, at least on paper, and the high-end model is easily the most beastly Android phone the world has seen so far.

Usage notes

Most often used pejoratively, but sense 4 has predominantly positive connotations. Bestial is more narrow, though also often used pejoratively.

Synonyms

• (like a beast): bestial, animalian

Derived terms

• beastliness

Translations

Adverb

beastly (comparative more beastly, superlative most beastly)

1. Like a beast; brutishly.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.8:

     Beastly he threwe her downe, ne car'd to spill / Her garments gay with scales of fish that all did fill.

   • 1901, The Literary World - Volume 63 - Page 35:

     They have insulted me most beastly. Moreover, they are, everyone of them, black-satan filthmen.

Anagrams

• baetyls