Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In an upward manner or direction; upward.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb In an upward manner.
  • adverb Towards a higher level, position or status.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb spatially or metaphorically from a lower to a higher position

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

upward +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • The inheritance tax proposal was aimed squarely at the core vote, which I define as the upwardly mobile middle classes.

    David Cameron 2009

  • Haitians in America and Canada are well known as upwardly mobile, entrepreneurial, and hardworking.

    After Reconstruction 2010

  • I fear that in our so-called upwardly mobile world we are on a downward spiral toward moral bankruptcy.

    Money For Mortality 2008

  • Sir Michael Caine is, as am I, a member of what used to be known as the upwardly-mobile working class, the real target of Labour's class warfare.

    New Statesman James Macintyre 2010

  • I gave the idea of upwardly trickling funds some thought.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2009

  • I gave the idea of upwardly trickling funds some thought.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2009

  • I gave the idea of upwardly trickling funds some thought.

    Propeller Most Popular Stories 2009

  • Other than that, apart from the multiple, identical Buddhas clumped together on one shelf, which lent a jumble sale feel to what is meant to be a 'posh' couples 'flat as in London's' new landed gentry '(as one elderly gentlemen had termed the upwardly mobile, affected accent set) the living room, divided in two, with a' poor man's 'dining room (mismatched seating, etc) in which the upstairs couple of lesser means are meant to dwell, on the left seems apt.

    London SE1 community website 2009

  • After an hour or so of looking at slideshows, I'd fallen prey to a kind of upwardly mobile Stockholm syndrome -- reading that one house had "no surround sound in the cabana," I found myself reacting like I'd read that "the roof leaks and the rooms are infested by feral cats."

    Mr. Mogul's Dream House 2008

  • Sunday Times editor Mathatha Tsedu dismissed on Saturday by publishers Johnnic Communications, said he was caught in a bind between serving the majority of the paper's readers who are black and producing a paper white advertisers saw as "upwardly".

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2003

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