a. [f. VAPOUR sb. + -ISH.]
1. Of the nature of vapor; dim through the presence of vapour; vapory.
1647. Hexham, I. Vaporish, dompigh, roockachtigh.
1781. Hayley, Triumphs Temper, I. 287. To drive gross atoms from the rays of noon Or chase the halo from the vapourish moon.
1795. Brit. Critic, VI. 272.
| Some do the citie now frequent, | |
| Where costlie shews and merriment | |
| Do weare the vaporish ev’ninge out | |
| With interlude and revellinge rout. |
1844. Blackw. Mag., LV. 166. The conception is generally vague, vapourish, and metaphysical.
1887. Hall Caine, Son of Hagar, II. viii. When Greta set out, the atmosphere was yellow and vapourish.
2. Apt to be troubled with the vapours; inclined to depression or low spirits.
1716–20. Lett. Mist’s Jrnl. (1722), I. 97. For, as most other old Maids, she is exceedingly vapourish and fanciful.
1740. Richardson, Pamela, II. 315. Every one sees, that the yawning Husband, and the vapourish Wife, are truly insupportable to one another.
1782. Sir J. E. Smith, Mem. (1832), I. 48. It made me vapourish to see so many students going away.
1803. Anna Seward, Lett. (1811), VI. 60. I see him, with all his inherent good properties, a vapourish egotist.
1844. Thackeray, Barry Lyndon, xix. Lady Lyndon, always vapourish and nervous,… became more agitated than ever.
b. Of the nature of, connected with, arising from, nervous depression.
1733. Cheyne, Eng. Malady, II. iv. § 4 (1734), 148. Some Headachs … may properly enough be call’d Vapourish or Nervous.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), III. 288. I am in the depth of vapourish despondency.
1793. W. Roberts, Looker-on, No. 41 (1794), II. 107. Be tender of using it in this torpid and vapourish condition.
1835. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., I. 22. This ‘very penetrating world’—as a maid of my mother’s used to call it in vapourish moods.
1879. Miss Braddon, Vixen, III. 85. His pretty,… middle-aged wife, whose languid airs and vapourish graces were likely to pall … alter a year of married life.
3. Apt to produce vapors. rare–1.
1725. Fam. Dict., s.v. Flux, He must forbear every thing that is hot and vapourish.
Hence Vapo[u]rishness.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), IV. 41. You will not wonder that the vapourishness which has laid hold of my heart should rise to my pen.
1860. Cockburn Muir, Ess., Pagan or Christ., 116. There is a vapourishness about the design of French Cathedrals and French work generally.
1888. N. Y. Times, 16 Dec., 19/6. If in Mr. Shorthouse’s ‘A Teacher of the Violin’ there was an appreciable vaporishness, in ‘The Countess Eve’ the same trait is notable.
