[f. as prec. + -Y1.]
1. Full of blooms or blossoms, flowery. poet.
1593. Drayton, Eclog., IV. Wks. (1793), 594/1. The bloomy brier.
c. 1640. Milton, Sonn., i. O Nightingale that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve.
1710. Philips, Pastorals, vi. 24. The bloomy Season of the Year is nigh.
1828. Sterling, Ess. & Tales (1848), ii. 199. Over meadow and bloomy bank.
2. fig. Blooming, in the beauty or flower of youth.
1651. Davenant, Gondibert, III. III. iii. Thou who … thy bloomy bride Lead’st to some temple.
1725. Pope, Odyss., X. 331. On his bloomy face Youth smil’d celestial.
1807. Crabbe, Par. Reg., II. 356. What if, in both, life’s bloomy flush was lost.
† b. Of language: Flowery, florid. Obs.
1685. F. Spence, House Medici, 282. He top’d him … by strewing his discourse with bloomy, flourishing expressions.
3. Covered with bloom, as a plum; of the color of this bloom.
a. 1639. T. Carew, Inquiry, iii. In bloomy peach, in rosy bud, There wave the streamers of her blood.
1700. Dryden, Flower & Leaf, 343. Florence satin, flowered with white and green, And for a shade betwixt the bloomy gridelin.
1844. Hood, Haunted H., xxii. Showers of bloomy plums.
1860. T. Martin, Horace, 267. Rush-bound cucumbers … with their sides of bloomy green.
1881. Mrs. Holman Hunt, Childr. Jerus., 40. The fierce sun had dried all oil out of the paint, leaving of it a soft bloomy colour, like corroded old copper.
4. Comb. bloomy-down, Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus), Britten and Holland.
