Definition of "seely" [seel•y]

• Lucky, fortunate. (adjective)
• Innocent; harmless. (adjective)
• Pitiable, deserving of sympathy; poor, miserable. (adjective)
• Trifling, insignificant. (adjective)
• Silly, foolish. (adjective)

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• "Silly (as seely) meant happy, lucky, and blessed, then (as silly) helpless and piteous, then feeble or insignificant, then simple or unsophisticated, before taking on its current meaning."
• "The seely Algerian, thinking he had scored a huge success, rushed back to Damascus: where Jemal nearly hanged him for his pains."
• "Wherat the Lord of Mendozza was greatly astonned: and when hee had heard the whole discourse, hee began to conceiue some euill opinion of the duchesse: thinkinge it to be incredible, that the earle of Pancalier woulde so forget himselfe, as to murder his owne proper nephewe and adopted sonne, to be reuenged of a seely woman."