musically

From Middle English musicallye, musikili; equivalent to musical +‎ -ly.

musically (comparative more musically, superlative most musically)

1. In a musical manner.

   The wind chimes tinkled musically in the breeze.

   • 1656, T[homas] B[lount], Glossographia: Or a Dictionary, Interpreting all ſuch Hard Words, Whether Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spaniſh, French, Teutonick, Belgick, Britiſh or Saxon, as are now uſed in our refined Engliſh Tongue. ‎, To the Reader:

     Something might alſo be ſaid of the choice of Words, in our refined Engliſh Tongue; which are to be liked and approved according to their tone, and the ſweetneſs of their cadence, that is, as they run muſically in the Ear.

   • 1737, R[ichard] Glover, “Book VI”, in Leonidas. A Poem.‎, page 152:

     […] with accents muſically ſweet
     A tender voice his wondring ear allur'd.

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     A gentle breeze fills the huge sail of our dhow, and draws us through the water that ripples musically against her sides.

   • 1970, Larry Niven, Ringworld, page 276:

     Prill laughed musically[.]

2. In terms of music.

   The film looked good, but was musically lacking.

   • 1734, The Eight Volumes of Letters Writ by a Turkiſh Spy who Liv'd Five and Forty Years Undiſcover'd at Paris: ‎, page 232:

     He's alſo muſically given, and ſo light of Heel, that there are few People can out-walk him.

   • 1893 November, Owen Wister, “Catholicity in Musical Taste”, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume LXXII, number CCCCXXXIII:

     Each sings the tune and words independently of his predecessor and follower, and their blending, though a collision of three sets of words and three sets of notes, is musically coherent.