confusedly

confused +‎ -ly

confusedly (comparative more confusedly, superlative most confusedly)

1. In a confused manner.
   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act I, Scene 1,

     He wanted pikes to set before his archers;

     Instead whereof sharp stakes pluck'd out of hedges

     They pitched in the ground confusedly,

     To keep the horsemen off from breaking in.

   • 1648, Robert Herrick, “Delight in Disorder” in Hesperides,

     A cuff neglectful, and thereby

     Ribbons to flow confusedly:

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2, lines 911-14,

     The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,

     Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,

     But all these in their pregnant causes mixed

     Confus’dly […]

   • 1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book VI, Chapter IX,

     She heard confusedly the busy, indifferent voices around her, and wished her mind could flow into that easy babbling current.

   • 1919, W. B. Yeats, “Her Praise” in The Wild Swans at Coole, lines 5-9,

     And though I have turned the talk by hook or crook

     Until her praise should be the uppermost theme,

     A woman spoke of some new tale she had read,

     A man confusedly in a half dream

     As though some other name ran in his head.