a. Also 7–9 poet. verd’rous. [f. VERDURE + -OUS.]
1. Of vegetation: Rich or abounding in verdure; flourishing thick and green.
1604. Drayton, Moyses, II. 51. The loathsome Hemlock as the verdurous Rose, These filthy Locusts equally deuowre. Ibid. (1612), Poly-olb., xv. 196. The sent-full Camomill, the verdurous Costmary.
1708. J. Philips, Cyder, I. 35. Where the lowing Herd Chews verd’rous Pasture.
c. 1750. Shenstone, Economy, I. 129. Lovely as when th’ Hesperian fruitage smil’d Amid the verd’rous grove!
1812. Cary, Dante, Purg., XXIX. 89. Four animals, each crown’d with verdurous leaf.
1835. J. P. Kennedy, Horse Shoe R., I. xii. 157. The rich, verdurous and lively forest that … encompassed this blighted spot.
1837. Howitt, Rur. Life, II. i. (1862), 89. Green fields and verdurous trees or deep woodlands lying all round.
1885. Athenæum, 23 May, 669/1. Verdurous masses of foliage and sward disposed with great simplicity and breadth.
fig. and transf. 1857. Willmott, Pleas. Lit., xxiii. 148. Of these, Philosophy is one of the most verdurous and throws the broadest shadow.
1876. Blackie, Songs Relig. & Life, 197. With banners of gold and of silver,… And verdurous power in his path When he comes in the pride of the May.
b. Of places, etc.: Covered or clothed with verdure; displaying a rich (green) vegetation.
1717. E. Fenton, Poems, 93. There the Flocks And Herds of Phœbus o’er the verd’rous Lawn Browze fatt’ning pasture.
1772. Sir W. Jones, Seven Fount., Poems (1777), 37. Green hillocks,… And verdurous plains with winding streams bedew’d.
1796. Coleridge, To Chas. Lloyd, 51. That verdurous hill with many a resting-place.
c. 1818. Keats, Ep. J. H. Reynolds, 58. The verd’rous bosoms of those isles.
1856. R. A. Vaughan, Mystics (1860), II. 80. Spots like those in the lowlands of Northern Germany, verdurous and seemingly solid.
1892. Mrs. H. Ward, David Grieve, II. 302. A playing wind sprang up,… freshening the verdurous ways through which they passed.
2. Consisting or composed of verdure.
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 143. Yet higher then thir tops The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung.
1772. Nugent, trans. Hist. Friar Gerund, I. 533. Why did not the Earth protend her verdurous offerings?
1817. Shelley, Rev. Islam, VI. xxvii. Clasping its gray rents with a verdurous woof, A hanging dome of leaves.
1818. Keats, Endym., III. 420. Just when the light of morn … Stole through its verdurous matting of fresh trees.
1860. Motley, Netherl. (1865), I. v. 259. The soldiers themselves, attired in verdurous garments of foliage and flower-work,… paraded the bridge.
3. Of or pertaining to, characteristic of, verdure.
1820. Keats, Ode to Nightingale, iv. Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
1851. Meredith, London by Lamplight, xxiv. This night of deep solemnity, And verdurous serenity.
1859. Neale, Disciples at Emmaus in Seatonian P. (1864), 187. Every tinted leaf Opes its young channel to the verdurous sap.
1883. Harper’s Mag., July, 166/1. Its verdurous hue is more noticeable than its elevation.
Hence Verdurousness.
1856. T. T. Lynch, Lett. to Scattered (1872), 557. Many of them [sc. sermons] have an invigorating verdurousness, and are like the wide green fields.
