Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In a wooden manner; stiffly; clumsily; awkwardly; without feeling or sympathy.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb Clumsily; stupidly; blockishly.

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

  • adverb In a wooden manner; clumsily or without animation.

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

  • adverb without grace; rigidly

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

wooden +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • Mr. Bi's prose is as woodenly earnest as a smitten girl's love letters.

    Daughters and Sins Raymond Zhong 2011

  • Slowly my hand released the railing and I turned, going woodenly back up the stairs.

    Darkness Becomes Her Kelly Keaton 2011

  • At the Munich Security Conference, Zhang Zhijun, China's vice-minister of foreign affairs, woodenly waffled on about how "the people of Asia" had chosen a different path from the west, and how the west should simply leave China to go its own way.

    Why Barack Obama and Xi Jinping need an Australian retreat with Kevin Rudd | Timothy Garton Ash 2012

  • And though his casting agent has assembled a solid team of actors, everyone involved (with the exception of Schreiber) plays their roles even more woodenly than one sees in most action movies, thus dampening viewer involvement with the material.

    MOVIE REVIEW: Repo Men (2010) 2010

  • You know, the show where alien ships hover over Earth week after week, with nothing much happening as Evil Queen Anna coldly plots the destruction of humanity with all those pesky emotional souls while a puny band of woodenly earnest resistance fighters plots Anna's takedown.

    Roush Review: V Finale and More Tuesday Drama (Detroit, Lights Out) 2011

  • In this vicinity is a statue of himself seated rather woodenly on a horse.

    Joaquin Miller 2010

  • The next morning, Wind Cat appeared out of the dawn, crouched by our fire, and stared woodenly at the dancing flames.

    Fire The Sky W. Michael Gear 2011

  • The next morning, Wind Cat appeared out of the dawn, crouched by our fire, and stared woodenly at the dancing flames.

    Fire The Sky W. Michael Gear 2011

  • But absolutely no one follows (or should follow) it invariably and woodenly.

    Robert Hartwell Fiske strikes me as a prig and a bully « Motivated Grammar 2009

  • Whoever said zombies went on slow romps hunting for the living, their arms outstretched, woodenly placing one foot ahead of the other?

    BRAINS • by Karel Smolders 2009

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