Origin and history of lamely

"crippled or disabled by injury to or defect of a limb or limbs," especially "walking with difficulty," Middle English, from Old English lama "crippled, lame; paralytic, weak," from Proto-Germanic *lama- "weak-limbed," literally "broken." This is reconstructed (Watkins) to be from PIE root *lem- "to break; broken," with derivatives meaning "crippled" (source also of Old Church Slavonic lomiti "to break," Lithuanian luomas "lame").

In Middle English especially "crippled in the feet," but also "crippled in the hands; disabled by disease; maimed." The figurative sense of "imperfect, halting, defective in quality or quantity" is attested from late 14c. The sense of "socially awkward" is attested from 1942.

As a noun meaning "crippled persons collectively" it is attested from late Old English. To come by the lame post (17c.-18c.) was an old colloquialism in reference to tardy mails or news out-of-date.

Germanic cognates include Old Norse lami "lame, maimed," Dutch and Old Frisian lam, German lahm "lame."

common adverbial suffix, forming, from adjectives, adverbs signifying "in a manner denoted by" the adjective; Middle English -li, from Old English -lice, from Proto-Germanic *-liko- (source also of Old Frisian -like, Old Saxon -liko, Dutch -lijk, Old High German -licho, German -lich, Old Norse -liga, Gothic -leiko). See -ly (1). It is cognate with lich, and identical with like (adj.).

Weekley notes as "curious" that Germanic uses a word essentially meaning "body" for the adverbial formation, while Romanic uses one meaning "mind" (as in French constamment from Latin constanti mente). The modern English form emerged in late Middle English, probably from influence of Old Norse -liga.