[app. f. BLOAT a.2: its identity with or distinctness from the prec. depends of course upon the relation of the two adjectives.]
1. trans. To blow out, inflate, swell, make turgid. Also absol.
1677. Dryden, Circe, Prol. 25. Encourage him, and bloat him up with praise, That he may get more bulk before he dies.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 127, ¶ 6. To see so many well-shaped innocent Virgins bloated up, and waddling up and down like big-bellied Women.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Epispastic, Of epispasticks, there are some which … swell and bloat the skin.
1748. Chesterf., Lett., II. clviii. 64. All malt-liquors fatten, or at least bloat.
1815. Encycl. Brit., III. 549. Butchers have a kind of blast or bellows … by which they bloat or blow up their meat when killed.
1834. H. Miller, Scenes & Leg., xvi. (1857), 240. Dead bodies … bloated by the water.
a. 1878. Stirling-Maxwell, in Edin. Rev., No. 323. 19. Excess, both in eating and drinking … had bloated his cheek.
2. intr. To swell, become swollen or turgid.
1731. Arbuthnot, Aliments, 153 (J.). If a Person of a firm Constitution begins to bloat, and from being warm grows cold, his Fibres grow weak.
1813. T. Jefferson, Corr. (1830), 221. No man knows what his property is worth, because it is bloating while he is calculating.
1839. Fraser’s Mag., XIX. 94. Who shut me up In darkness … to fatten, swell, and bloat.
