a. [ad. late L. viscid-us, f. L. viscum birdlime (see VISCOUS a.). Hence also OF. viscide, It. viscido.]
1. Of fluid or soft substances: Having a glutinous or gluey character; sticky, adhesive, ropy. (Cf. VISCOUS a. 1.)
1635. Brathwait, Arcad. Pr., 235. I meane by sweatings and suffumigations to extract all those viscid and oily humours.
1657. Physical Dict., Viscid phlegm, clammy tough phlegm, roping like birdlime.
1672. Grew, Anat. Roots, I. iii. § 21. I call it a Balsame;… Yet not a Terebinth; because, nothing near so viscid or tenaceous as that is.
1742. Lond. & Country Brew., I. (ed. 4), 46. By which the spirituous Particles are set loose and free from their viscid Confinements.
1777. Forster, Voy. round World, I. 104. Whenever we lamed any of them, they disgorged a quantity of viscid food.
1804. Abernethy, Surg. Obs., 131. I could not see the surface [of the ulcer] for a very viscid discharge, which adhered to it like mucus.
1845. Budd, Dis. Liver, 268. In persons who die of phthisis, the bile in the gall-bladder … is often very dark-coloured, and viscid.
1875. Darwin, Insectiv. Pl., i. 13. The secretion from the glands is extremely viscid.
2. Of surfaces: Covered with a glutinous or sticky secretion. Chiefly Bot. of leaves.
1760. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., III. v. (1765), 182. Viscid, Clammy; when they are smeared over with a Juice that is not fluid but tenacious, sticky.
1793. Martyn, Lang. Bot., s.v. Viscidum, A Viscid or clammy leaf.
1812. New Bot. Gard., I. 42. The panicle is upright and viscid.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., I. 421. Head … covered with large and hard plates, or a viscid skin.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 207. Senecio viscosus; annual, glandular-pubescent, viscid.
1874. Lubbock, Wild Flowers, iii. 164. Close behind the stigma is a projection which terminates in a very viscid disk.
