Adverb
In a stern manner.
Source: Webster's dictionaryCustoms do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden. Mark Twain
Duty - that which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire. Ambrose Bierce
The status quo was rote memorization and recitation in classrooms thronged with passive children who were sternly disciplined when they expressed individual needs. David Guterson
Drowning yourself won't help, she told herself sternly. Now, drowning Will, on the other hand... Cassandra Clare
The ground which a colored man occupies in this country is, every inch of it, sternly disputed. Frederick Douglass
I learned a lot from Arthur Rimbaud. People talk about how he wanted to be a seer and do that through the derangement of the senses. What they forget was that he also advocated, sternly and austerely, that one must be able to go through all that - and then articulate it. Patti Smith