What is "courtly"

Usage examples of "courtly".

She taught him the courtly manners of the elf lords, and also the corybantic measures they trod when they were out in the open, barefoot in dew and drunk with moonlight.

Between Egerton and Denbigh there was maintained a kind of courtly intercourse, which prevented any disagreeable collision from their evident dislike.

As if courtly intrigues are as regular to Haarlem tongues as herrings, crones buzz that in her late years Marie de Medici has become tired of matters of government.

Thanks to the accelerated study on Solitudo Hermae, the Hegemonic script no longer looked peculiar to her, but the titles were old-fashioned enough to make her hesitate, mentally shifting from one alphabet to the more familiar coine characters, before she was certain she understood them: The Art of Courtly Behavior, Recollections of a Long Life, Regulations of the Royal House, The Register of the Thousand, and the even larger Register of the Ten Thousand.

First, she had imagined it peopled with courtly gentlemen, but from what she could gather and the way the gentlemen shouted at each other it seemed more like The Tuns on a market day.

And the district attorney gave Gillian his courtliest bow, his most urbane smile.

With the courtliest of bows, Lord Tionel presented the case to his former contractual spouse.

Like a courtly cavalier I would not sit down, but waited on the ladies, going from one to the other, eating the dainty bits they gave me, and seeing that all had what they wanted.

While he was looking everywhere round him with astonishment, a venerable person approached him with many friendly salutations, rather of too hearty a kind to be called courtly.

Back activated savoir faire subroutines he had not needed since he escorted Ayradyss and John on their long-ago honeymoon, surprising Jay with his repertoire of courtly compliments that stayed precisely on the correct side of mannerly.

Decadency these Virginians practice an elaborate Folly of Courtly Love, unmodified since the Dark Ages, so relentlessly that at length they cannot distinguish Fancy from the substantial World, and their Folly absorbs them into itself.

Perrot, short, broad, swarthy, dressed in rude buckskin gaudily ornamented, bandoleer and belt garnished with silver,--a recent gift of some grateful merchant, standing between the powerful black-robed priest and this gallant sailor-soldier, richly dressed in fine skins and furs, with long waving hair, more like a Viking than a man of fashion, and carrying a courtly and yet sportive look, as though he could laugh at the miseries of the sinful world.

Madame d'Urfe, a woman advanced in years, but still handsome, received me with all the courtly grace of the Court of the Regency.

The peasant and his family sat in a corner apart, sad, sorry, and comfortless, with no friend to speak a consoling word, while the count was surrounded by a courtly throng, who assured him that with such a case he could not possibly lose.

After the initial male ceremony of back slaps and shoulder jabs, Riley introduced Caralie to Stanley Walker, who took her hand and grandly kissed the back of it with a courtly bow.