English

Adverb

fatally ‎(comparative more fatally, superlative most fatally)

1. In a fatal manner; lethally.
   • 1599: William Shakespeare, The Life of King Henry V

     Witness our too much memorable shame

     When Cressy battle fatally was struck,

     And all our princes captiv'd by the hand

     Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;

   • 1918: H. B. Irving, A Book of Remarkable Criminals

     He told Peace that he did not believe his statement that he had fired the pistol merely to frighten the constable; had not Robinson guarded his head with his arm he would have been wounded fatally, and Peace condemned to death.

2. Ultimately, with finality or irrevocability, moving towards the demise of something.
   • 2012 April 15, Phil McNulty, “Tottenham 1-5 Chelsea”, in BBC:

     Chelsea will point to that victory margin as confirmation of their superiority - but Spurs will complain their hopes of turning the game around were damaged fatally by Atkinson's decision.

   • 1854: Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods

     "They pretend," as I hear, "that the verses of Kabir have four different senses; illusion, spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas;" but in this part of the world it is considered a ground for complaint if a man's writings admit of more than one interpretation. While England endeavors to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?

3. Fatedly; according to the dictates of fate or doom.
   • 1919: Booth Tarkington, The Flirt

     He was a slender young man in hot black clothes; he wore the unfacaded collar fatally and unanimously adopted by all adam's-apple men of morals; he was washed, fair, flat-skulled, clean-minded, and industrious; and the only noise of any kind he ever made in the world was on Sunday.

Synonyms

• mortally