a. and sb. Also 7 -ean. [f. L. Vulcāni-us, f. Vulcān-us VULCAN sb. Cf. F. vulcanien.]
A. adj. 1. Of or pertaining to, characteristic of, associated with, Vulcan.
1602. F. Hering, trans. Oberndorffer’s Anat., 5. They reiect incomparable Galens learned Commentarie…, hauing found thorow Paracelsus Vulcanian shop a more compendious … way.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 835. Nor could Vulcanian flame The stench abolish, or the savour tame. Ibid. (1700), Pal. & Arc., III. 908. With sounding axes to the Grove they go. Fell, split, and lay the fewel on a row, Vulcanian food.
1726. Pope, Odyss., XX. 154. Meantime the menial train with unctuous wood Heap’d high the genial hearth, Vulcanian food.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, XXIII. 41. Many a saginated boar bright-tusk’d, Amid fierce flames Vulcanian stretch’d to roast.
1854. H. E. J. Howard, Rape Proserpine, 15.
| The ponderous gates, the threshold, and the wall, | |
| Cast in Vulcanian mould, were iron all. |
1865. Ruskin, Sesame, i. § 45. An armour forged in diviner fire by Vulcanian force.
b. Fashioned or forged by Vulcan. Also fig.
1603. J. Davies (Heref.), Microcosmos, Wks. (Grosart), I. 42/1. God’s feare, that strong Vulcanian Armor, must Guard such good Soules as doe regard it heere.
a. 1693. Urquhart’s Rabelais, III. xii. 93. The … slinging Casts of the Vulcanian Thunderbolts.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, X. 1139. The Trojan Chief … On his Vulcanian Orb sustain’d the War.
1718. J. Trapp, trans. Virgil (1735), I. Pref. to Æneis, p. xlvii. Ornamental Sculptures upon Homer’s Vulcanian Shield.
1762. Falconer, Shipwr., III. 287. Thunders, that shook the skies with dire alarms, And, form’d by skill divine, Vulcanian arms.
1792. D. Lloyd, Voy. Life, V. 185/98–9.
| Nor brazen walls, | |
| Nor bright Vulcanian shields, can stand before | |
| Th’intrepid aim of Resolution! |
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xii. III. 166. The Vulcanian panoply which Achilles lent to his feebler friend.
1871. Lonsdale & Lee, Virgil, Gen. Introd. (1903), 8. Criticism is as powerless against the poet as the sword of the mortal hero against the immortal temper of the Vulcanian shield.
2. Sprung from, related to, Vulcan.
1630. J. Taylor (Water P.), Gt. Eater Kent, 4. The Vulcanean brood of blacksmiths, fire-men, colliers, gunners, gun-founders, and all sorts of mettle-men.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, X. 758. Vulcanian Cæculus renews the fight, And Umbro born upon the mountain’s height.
1749. G. West, trans. Pindar, 1st Pythian Ode, vi. But he, Vulcanian Monster, to the clouds The fiercest, hottest inundations throws.
† b. sb. One who resembles Vulcan. Obs.–1
1598. Marston, Pigmal., Sat., ii. Yet Muto, like a good Vulcanian, An honest Cuckold, calls the bastard sonne, And brags of that which others for him done.
† 3. Vulcanian Islands, the Lipari Islands between Sicily and Italy. Obs.
1652. Heylin, Cosmogr., I. 72. On the West part of Sicil lie the Æolian or Vulcanian Ilands.
1690. T. Burnet, Theory Earth, II. 57. There are no volcano’s in my opinion, that deserve our observation so much, as those that are in and about the Mediterranean Sea; there is a knot of them called the Vulcanian Islands, from their fiery eruptions.
1705. C. Purshall, Mech. Macrocosm, 83. The Vulcanian Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, are said to be of this sort.
4. Of, belonging to, or abounding with, volcanoes; volcanic. (Cf. VOLCANIAN a.)
1656. [? J. Sergeant], trans. T. White’s Peripat. Inst., 126. Aetna, Lipara and Hecla … and especially the Vulcanian Mountains of the new world.
1880. Proctor, Poetry Astron., i. (1881), 18. If no vulcanian forces were at work to prevent submergence.
1883. Contemp. Rev., Oct., 575. Only by the action of her vulcanian energies can the earth maintain her position as an abode of life.
5. = PLUTONIAN a. 2. (Cf. VULCANIST 3.)
1840. Smart.
1850. Ogilvie, s.v. Vulcanist, The Vulcanian theory has been expanded and illustrated by Lyell.
1870. Brewer, Dict. Phr. & Fable, 939/2. The Vulcanian or Plutonian theory, which ascribes the changes on the earth’s surface to the agency of fire.
