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# sweetly

«sweetly» in Mova's school dictionary: **In a kind, gentle and pleasant way** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

adverb

### meaning for a pupil

1) In a kind, gentle and pleasant way. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#m1)

2) With a nice, sweet sound or smell. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#m2)

3) Smoothly and well, as in a ball sweetly struck. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#m3)

4) (ironic) Pretending to be nice when you are not: «she smiled sweetly and said no». [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#m4)

### sense in the lessons

In stories «sweetly» describes a gentle smile, a sweet voice or song, or flowers that smell sweetly. Sometimes it is sly: a character «smiles sweetly» while planning a trick. In sport talk a ball hit «sweetly» is hit perfectly. Phrases: «smiled sweetly», «sang sweetly», «sweetly scented».

### examples

- The baby smiled sweetly at her grandmother. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#x1)
- The birds sang sweetly in the morning. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#x2)
- The roses smelt sweetly in the garden. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#x3)
- He struck the ball sweetly into the net. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#x4)
- «No, thank you,» she said sweetly, but she was cross. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#x5)
- The little boy asked sweetly for another biscuit. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#x6)
- The little mermaid sang more sweetly than them all. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/#x7)

### note

From «sweet» + «-ly». Strictly, «smell sweet» (adjective) is more usual than «smell sweetly». Watch for irony: a «sweetly» spoken line can hide anger or cunning.

### In the corpora

- [Sitting by the driver, Toad asks sweetly if «she» may try driving, just to tell her friends.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/64-willows-ch10-part4-into-the-horse-pond/0/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «sweetly» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sweetly/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.