a. and sb. [f Vesuvius, the name of the active volcano on the Bay of Naples in Italy. Cf. G. vesuvian, F. vésuvien.]
A. adj. Of or pertaining to Vesuvius; esp. (a) like or resembling Vesuvius, or that of Vesuvius, in volcanic violence or power.
(a) 1673. R. Head, Canting Acad., 11. The fury of this smoaking rage being… abated, and having pretty well drench’d their Vesuvian throats.
1809. Campbell, Gert. Wyom., III. xx. Then looked they to the hills, where fire o’erhung The bandit groups in one Vesuvian glare.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., II. v. Such a fire … did actually burst-forth, with explosions more or less Vesuvian, in the inner of man of Herr Diogenes.
1878. Huxley, in L. Huxley, Life (1900), II. xxv. 432. The inflammation of the pudding was highly successful—in fact Vesuvian not to say Ætnaic.
(b.) 1833. Lyell, Princ. Geol., III. 125. There is a tendency in almost all the Vesuvian dikes to divide into horizontal prisms.
1886. A. Winchell, Walks Geol. Field, 87. History records a large number of Vesuvian eruptions.
1897. Geikie, Anc. Volcanoes Brit., li. II. 471. The three modern types of Vesuvian cones.
† b. Vesuvian salt, aphthitalite. Obs.
1813. Smithson, in Phil. Trans., CIII. 262. This Vesuvian salt … has presented no less than nine distinct species of matters.
B. sb. 1. Min. A silicate of aluminium, lime and iron, or other base, occurring massive but more freq. in square crystals of various colors, found originally in the ancient Vesuvian lavas; idocrase.
Named by Werner, the German mineralogist, in 1795.
1796. Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), I. 285. Vesuvian, or white Garnet of Vesuvius. Found principally in the lava of Vesuvius.
1815. Aikin, Min. (ed. 2), 224. Vesuvian occurs crystallized in groups, or lining cavities, or massive.
1859. R. Hunt, Guide Mus. Pract. Geol. (ed. 2), 255. Idocrase was first observed in the ancient Vesuvian lavas, and thence it is called sometimes Vesuvian. It is a compound of silica, alumina, lime, and iron.
1879. Rutley, Study Rocks, x. 142. Idocrase or Vesuvian is in its chemical composition closely allied to the lime-alumina garnets.
2. A kind of match or fusee, burning with a sputtering flame, used especially for lighting cigars or tobacco-pipes in the open air.
1853. Pract. Mechanics Jrnl., VI. 147. One of Palmer’s Vesuvians is a still more sure … way of igniting the fuze.
1862. Whyte-Melville, Inside Bar, 348. Striving by the aid of a ‘Vesuvian’ to relight my cigar.
1886. R. C. Leslie, Sea-painter’s Log, 103. Beyond a few vesuvians, they had nothing among them that would burn.
attrib. 1879. Man. Artillery Exerc., 175. A vesuvian match-box.
1904. ‘E. Nesbit,’ Phœnix & Carpet, i. 4. They tried to light it with Vesuvian fusees.
