If you do something nosily, you try to find out things that are not your business, especially other people’s private lives. You might listen nosily behind a door, or ask nosily how much someone earns. The word is a little critical — it says the person is going too far — but it is not a very hard insult; it is the kind of telling-off a family member might use. The picture behind it is “nosy”: pushing your nose into someone else’s life. Informal. A more formal cousin is inquisitively, which can mean simply curious, or still too curious, depending on the speaker.