SAINTLY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does saintly mean? 

• SAINTLY (adjective)
  The adjective SAINTLY has 1 sense:

1. marked by utter benignity; resembling or befitting an angel or saint

  Familiarity information: SAINTLY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SAINTLY (adjective)

Comparative: saintlier   
Superlative: saintliest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by utter benignity; resembling or befitting an angel or saint

Synonyms:

angelic; angelical; beatific; sainted; saintlike; saintly

Context example:

my sainted mother

Similar:

good (morally admirable)

Derivation:

saint (person of exceptional holiness)

saint (a person who has died and has been declared a saint by canonization)

saintliness (the quality of resembling a saint)

 Context examples 

The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

She was positively bewitching, and, withal, sweetly spirituelle, if not saintly.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Seeing this did more for Jo than the wisest sermons, the saintliest hymns, the most fervent prayers that any voice could utter.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

And now, if I do but step into the parlour, I can see her once more, with over eighty years of saintly life behind her, silver-haired, placid-faced, with her dainty ribboned cap, her gold-rimmed glasses, and her woolly shawl with the blue border.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Elizabeth’s heart-rending eloquence failed to move the judges from their settled conviction in the criminality of the saintly sufferer.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Now, if she had been the heroine of a moral storybook, she ought at this period of her life to have become quite saintly, renounced the world, and gone about doing good in a mortified bonnet, with tracts in her pocket.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

She did not rebuke Jo with saintly speeches, only loved her better for her passionate affection, and clung more closely to the dear human love, from which our Father never means us to be weaned, but through which He draws us closer to Himself.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

That's a 'label' on my 'sect', answered Laurie, quoting Amy, as he went to partake of humble pie dutifully with his grandfather, who was quite saintly in temper and overwhelmingly respectful in manner all the rest of the day.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)