drily

Etymology

dry + -ly

adv

1. Of speech, in a dry manner; with dry humour.
   ‘Are you going?’ said Mr Chester, rising with a graceful indolence. ‘Let me light you down the stairs.’ ‘Pray keep your seat,’ returned the other drily, ‘I know the way.’ So, waving his hand slightly, and putting on his hat as he turned upon his heel, he went clanking out as he had come, shut the door behind him, and tramped down the echoing stairs. ‘Pah! A very coarse animal, indeed!’ said Mr Chester, composing himself in the easy-chair again. ‘A rough brute. Quite a human badger!’ 1841, Charles Dickens, chapter //dummy.host/index.php?title=s%3Aen%3ABarnaby+Rudge%2FChapter+12 12, in Barnaby Rudge
   Füssli […] gives an account of the painter which is largely occupied with a consideration of his masterpiece, the ‘Battle of Waterloo.’ He comments upon the prominence given to Wellington in the picture, and rather drily remarks […] that the rearward position assigned Blücher is not an ungraceful tribute to Germany ! the intention undoubtedly being ‘der deutschen Bescheidenheit ein Compliment zu machen.’ 1900, Ernest William Radford, “//dummy.host/index.php?title=s%3Aen%3AAtkinson%2C+John+Augustus+%28DNB00%29 ATKINSON, John Augustus”, in Dictionary of National Biography, volume 2, page 224
   It was not until 1889, however, that Nat Goodwin's talent as a comedian of the “legitimate” type began to be recognized. From that time he appeared in a number of plays designed to display his drily humorous method, such as Brander Matthews' and George H. Jessop's A Gold Mine, Henry Guy Carleton's A Gilded Fool and Ambition, Clyde Fitch’s Nathan Hale, H. V. Esmond's When We Were Twenty-one, &c. 1911, “//dummy.host/index.php?title=s%3Aen%3A1911+Encyclop%C3%A6dia+Britannica%2FGoodwin%2C+Nathaniel+Carl GOODWIN, Nathaniel Carl”, in Encyclopædia Britannica, volume 12, page 239
   Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and said : — We oughtn’t to laugh, I suppose. He’s rather blasphemous. I’m not a believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of it somehow, doesn’t it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner? — The ballad of Joking Jesus, Stephen answered. — O, Haines said, you have heard it before? — Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily. 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Part I: The Telemachiad, Episode 1: Telemachus, //dummy.host/index.php?title=s%3Aen%3AThe+Annotated+%22Ulysses%22%2FPage+019 page 19