sb. and a. [a. F. visitant, pres. pple. of visiter, or ad. L. vīsitant-, vīsitans pres. pple. of vīsitāre to visit.]
A. sb. 1. One who pays a visit to another; a visitor.
Very common in 17–18th cent.; now rare or Obs.
1599. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., II. i. Hee has a rich wrought wast-coat to entertaine his visitants in.
1623. Massinger, Dk. Milan, I. iii. For the most part she hath kept her private chamber, No visitants admitted.
1664. Pepys, Diary, 22 Nov. Being sick, and full of visitants, we could not speak with him.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., II. 644. No Palace, with a lofty Gate he wants, T’ admit the Tydes of early Visitants.
1722. Pope, Lett. (1737), 127. As a visitant, a lodger, or a friend you are always welcome to me.
1760. Johnson, Idler, No. 101, ¶ 3. His chamber was filled by visitants, eager to catch the dictates of experience.
1825–9. Mrs. Sherwood, Lady of Manor, I. v. 151. She calmly explained to her visitant the motives of her conduct.
1826. Lamb, Elia, II. Popular Fallacies, xii. It is not of guests that we complain, but of endless, purposeless visitants.
1832. R. & J. Lander, Exped. Niger, I. xi. 81. He was shy and bashful … and really appeared agitated and afraid of his white-faced visitants.
transf. 1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 260. The services rendered by such visitants [sc. insects] will be understood when we have described all the parts of a flower.
1862. R. Vaughan, Eng. Nonconformity, 357. Rulers who deserve that an avenger should be upon their path, cannot always resist the impression that such a visitant may be at hand.
1868. Gladstone, Glean. (1879), III. 44. To the absolutely stereotyped forms both of faith and scepticism,… the author of ‘Ecce Homo’ has been a most unacceptable visitant.
b. Applied to supernatural beings or agencies, etc., esp. as revealing themselves to mortals.
1667. Milton, P. L., XI. 225. Adam … to Eve, While the great Visitant approachd, thus spake.
1782. J. Brown, Nat. & Revealed Relig., II. ii. 133. We are commended to hear him, as infinitely superior to Moses and Elias, his then visitants.
1813. Coleridge, Remorse, III. i. 85. Thou sainted spirit, Burst on our sight, a passing visitant!
1847. Disraeli, Tancred, II. xi. I would ask those mountains … why they no longer received heavenly visitants!
1873. M. Arnold, Lit. & Dogma (1870), 248. The spiritual visitant, indeed, which rejoiced the wise poet of Asera, was not the Paraclete of Jesus.
c. One who visits from charitable motives.
1661. Wither, Improv. Imprisonment (title-p.), A few Crums & Scraps Lately found in a Prisoners-Basket at Newgate, And Saved together, by a Visitant of Oppressed Prisoners.
d. One who makes a short stay at a friend’s house.
1769. Wesley, Wks. (1872), III. 365. I found a young gentlewoman there, a visitant.
1823. Scott, Peveril, xii. An attachment, which lulled … to pleasing dreams, though of a character so different, her charge and her visitant.
1838. Lytton, Alice, II. ii. She was transferred from the little chamber,… to an apartment … usually appropriated to the regular Christmas visitant, the Dowager Countess of Chipperton.
2. One who visits some place or object of interest.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 238. Being often used by way of sport to wet the Visitants of the Grot.
1710. Hearne, Collect. (O.H.S.), II. 382. Visitants of the Library.
1815. W. H. Ireland, Scribbleomania, 88, note. Which fact the visitant is given to understand from a long inscription upon a brass plate.
1839. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., II. 194/1. Some of the earliest and most extensive specimens of painted glass, well worthy of the attention of the visitant.
1894. Mrs. Dyan, Man’s Keeping (1899), 61. This gallery had frequent visitants.
b. One who visits a place, shrine, etc., from religious motives.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 45. Some of the Visitants count it meritorious to be trod to death under a weighty Chariot of Iron.
a. 1797. H. Walpole, Mem. Geo. III. (1845), I. x. 147. The father would accept no money from the various visitants, for which he was promised an adequate recompense by the chiefs of his sect.
1812. Cary, Dante, Par., XXV. 20. Behold the peer of mickle might, That makes Galicia throng’d with visitants.
1844. Kinglake, Eöthen, xvi. (1845), 228. The caution is said to be as applicable to the visitants of Jerusalem as to those of Mecca.
c. One who visits a strange town or country; a stranger who spends a short time in a place; a temporary resident.
1751. Smollett, Per. Pic. (1779), III. lxxxi. 183. Ghent … was much crowded with these new visitants.
1762. Goldsm., Nash, 24. The lodgings for visitants were paltry, though expensive.
1801. J. Jones, trans. Bijgge’s Trav. Fr. Rep., i. 22. This town has very little to invite the eye of a visitant.
1823. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1830), IV. 361. The paper … was not written by a Virginian, but a visitant from another State.
1857. G. Musgrave, Pilgr. Dauphiné, I. ii. 34. A splendid specimen … was continually surrounded by the French visitants.
1863. Hawthorne, Our Old Home (1879), 144. To show … the absurdity of a new visitant pretending to hold any opinion whatever on such subjects.
d. One who enters a country in hostile fashion; an invader.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. 93. The antient and christian inhabitants of the island retired to those natural intrenchments, for protection from their pagan visitants.
3. A thing that comes to one in a casual or temporary manner.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., V. 723. When your neighbour’s knell (Rude visitant!) knocks hard at your dull sense.
a. 1774. Goldsm., Surv. Exp. Philos. (1776), II. 135. However irregular we find the wind…, they have it a more constant and more grateful visitant.
1833. Whewell, in Todhunter, Acc. Writ. (1876), II. 160. Digby … is still ill of a rheumatic fever, his not unusual visitant.
1849. Miss Mulock, Ogilvies, xvi. Chasing away sleep and making the faint daylight a welcome visitant.
1876. Geo. Eliot, in Cross, Life (1885), III. 297. I am never in that mood of sadness which used to be my frequent visitant.
4. A migratory bird, etc., as temporarily frequenting a particular locality.
1770. J. Logan, Cuckoo, iii. Delightful visitant! with thee I hail the time of flowers.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), VI. 29. Such are our visitants. With regard to those which … breed here [etc.].
1834. Mudie, Brit. Birds (1841), I. 19. Those [birds] which come in the spring and depart in the autumn are called summer visitants.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal. (ed. 4), 97. Fresh-water fishes may be … merely visitants from the ocean for the purpose of depositing their spawn.
1894. R. B. Sharpe, Handbk. Birds Gt. Brit., I. 13. The Hooded Crow … being … in some localities a winter visitant only, in others a resident.
B. adj. Paying a visit or visits; having the position or character of a visitor.
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Scarlet Gown, 67. One shall never see any visitant Coches there, he being no otherwise accounted of, then as of a forelorn Cardinal.
1676. D’Urfey, Mme. Fickle, III. ii. I begin to have a knowledge of the visitant kinsman that us’d to molest us.
1726. De Foe, Hist. Devil (1822), 247. An intimate Devil, or a Devil visitant.
1794. Piozzi, Synon., I. 125. The snappish housekeeper gives short answers to the poor visitant niece.
1807. Wordsw., Song Feast Brougham Castle, 129. He knew the rocks which Angels haunt Upon the mountains visitant.
1864. Tennyson, Aylmer’s F., 166. And Edith’s everywhere; And Edith ever visitant with him.
1887. Ruskin, Præterita, II. 281. Mr. Melvill was entirely amiable in the Church visitant, though not formidable in the Church militant.
