a. [a. F. ventripotent (Rabelais), f. L. ventri-, venter belly + potent-, potens powerful, etc.]
1. Having a large abdomen; big-bellied.
1611. Cotgr., Ventripotent, ventripotent, big-paunch, bellie-able, huge-guts [Hence in Blount.]
1892. Harper’s Mag., Sept., 504/2. His mind is obviously not of the finest fibre, nor his massive and ventripotent person either.
1905. J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Cervantes in Eng., 5. He falters in the attempt to draw the short, ventripotent rustic [= Sancho Panza].
2. Having great capacity of stomach; gluttonous.
1823. New Monthly Mag., VII. 115. These ventripotent melodists called up from the Red Sea of my port and claret all their buried swells, shakes, and cadences.
1837. Blackw. Mag., XLII. 425. Thé ventripotent vermin [sc. fleas] were in the midst of their meal.
1863. Ld. Lennox, Biogr. Reminisc., I. 303. Louis des huitres, as the ventripotent monarch was called.
Hence Ventripotential a. nonce-word.
1824. New Monthly Mag., XI. 313. A ventri-potential citizen, into whose Mediterranean mouth good things are perpetually flowing.
