The Collaborative International Dictionary
Officious \Of*fi"cious\, a. [L. officiosus: cf. F. officieux. See Office.]
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Pertaining to, or being in accordance with, duty. [R.]
If there were any lie in the case, it could be no more than an officious and venial one.
--Note on Gen. xxvii. (Douay version). -
Disposed to serve; kind; obliging. [Archaic]
Yet not to earth are those bright luminaries Officious.
--Milton.They were tolerably well bred, very officious, humane, and hospitable.
--Burke. -
Importunately interposing services; intermeddling in affairs in which one has no concern; meddlesome.
You are too officious In her behalf that scorns your services.
--Shak.Syn: Impertinent; meddling. See Impertinent. [1913 Webster] -- Of*fi"cious*ly, adv. -- Of*fi"cious*ness, n.
Wiktionary
adv. in an officious manner
WordNet
adv. in an officious manner; "nothing so fatal as to strive too officiously for an abstract quality like beauty"
Usage examples of "officiously".
At the courtyard entrance, under the eyes of SS men, Transport Commission Jews at raw lumber tables are officiously checking in the transportees-asking questions, calling out names and numbers, slamming papers with rubber stamps, all with the worn-down irritability of emigration inspectors at any border.
My postilion had, a little officiously, while I was in the hall talking with the hotel authorities, got his horses, bit by bit, as other carriages moved away, to the very steps of the inn door.
Some unguarded expressions which dropped from Claudius were officiously transmitted to the royal ear.
Several uniformed policemen had entered, and Banat was officiously trying to bar them because they had no tickets, so Florian trotted over to intervene.
Skandar, Zalzan Kavol, who was the chief of his guards, shouting and waving his four arms officiously about, and the men and women in their impressive green-and-gold uniforms emerging from their floaters and forming a living enfilade to hold back the gaping populace, and the royal musicians setting up the royal anthem, and much more like that, until at last Sleet and Tunigorn came to the royal floater and opened its royal doors to allow the Coronal and his consort to step forth into the golden warmth of the day.
It gave me the sort of invisibility that the firm had found worked best: kidnappers always knew everything about a household they had attacked, and a newcomer too officiously visiting alarmed them.
Instead he had to wait while the ponderous ceremony of the arraying of the Coronal's guard took place: the great burly shaggy Skandar, Zalzan Kavol, who was the chief of his guards, shouting and waving his four arms officiously about, and the men and women in their impressive green-and-gold uniforms emerging from their floaters and forming a living enfilade to hold back the gaping populace, and the royal musicians setting up the royal anthem, and much more like that, until at last Sleet and Tunigorn came to the royal floater and opened its royal doors to allow the Coronal and his consort to step forth into the golden warmth of the day.
Lenehan in yachtsman's cap and white shoes officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat shoulder.
Ah Sam rushed about officiously and hugged the children, who were waiting in the house with their personal amahs, and propped May-may in the huge bed and brought the children to her.