[f. prec.]
1. trans. To raise blisters on. Also absol.
1541. R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg. Those that blyster make no scarre.
1610. Shaks., Temp., I. ii. 324. A south-west blow on yee and blister you all ore.
1624. Capt. Smith, Virginia, III. vii. 69. The Axes … blistered their tender fingers.
1776. Withering, Bot. Arrangem. (1801), III. 496. It is very acrid, and easily blisters the skin.
1822. Scott, Nigel, xxiii. Patients might be bled, cupped, or blistered.
1842. S. Lover, Handy Andy, ii. 18. I’ll slap at him … I’ll blister him.
1866. J. H. Newman, Gerontius, iv. 33. Ice which blisters may be said to burn.
fig. 1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., II. iii. 12. Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth, hath blistered her report. Ibid. (1605), Macb., IV. iii. 12. This tyrant whose sole name blisters our tongue.
1884. Browning, Ferishtah (1885), 33. Abominable words which blister tongue.
2. transf. To raise blisters on (iron bars, etc.) in the process of conversion into steel.
3. intr. To be or become covered with blisters.
1496. Bk. St. Albans, Fysshynge, 3. He blowyth tyll his lyppes blyster.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., II. ii. 33. If I proue hony-mouth’d, let my tongue blister.
1734. Atwell, in Phil. Trans., XXXIX. 399. The Wound has blister’d.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 168. Lint is ready to be taken up from the field, whenever the bark blisters and rises from the reed.
1821. Cook’s Oracle (ed. 3), 92. Otherwise it [roast sucking-pig] will be apt to blister.
† 4. To rise in or as a blister. Obs.
1644–7. Cleveland, Char. Lond. Diurn. (1677), 102. Our Modern Noble Men; those Wens of Greatness, the Body Politick’s most peccant Humours, Blistred into Lords.
