What does disappointingly or frustratingly mean?

She disappointingly/frustratingly shook her head.

What does that sentence mean?

Did she express her disappointment/frustration or did her shaking head arouse disappointment/frustration?

Solution 1:

My inclination is to say that when "disappointingly" is used to modify the nature of a person's reported speech, it's likely that it is a typo, mis-hearing, or plain speaking error. But, there is a certainly a clear difference in meaning between "frustratingly" and "frustratedly", and a similar distinction is available for "disappointingly" and "disappointedly".

Disappointedly clearly means "in a disappointed manner": that is, a manner that expresses disappointment.

Disappointingly would then mean "in a disappointing manner": that is, a manner that causes disappointment.

A possible sentence where both could do:

"Can we go to the store?" Fred asked, excitedly.

a: His mother shook her head disappointingly.
—her answer causes him disappointment.

b: His mother shook her head disappointedly.
—her head-shake expresses her own disappointment.

I would expect to see disappointingly used in a situation where results came back worse than expected:

We had hoped to see 20% annual growth. Disappointingly, 2% was all they could manage.

Solution 2:

The addition of -ly at the end of a word normally makes it an adverb which modifies the verb, just the same as an adjective. To think of how a person might shake their head disappointingly, I visualize a situation where a person might do it. For example: A son/daughter getting bad grades then telling their parents. They might shake their heads disappointingly.