a. [f. WHEEZE + -Y1.] Characterized by wheezing; resembling a wheeze.
1818. Keats, To a Cat, 10. The wheezy asthma.
1822. Good, Study Med., I. 466. Many persons have a thick or wheezy respiration.
1843. Thackeray, Fitz-Boodle’s Conf., Ottilia, ii. The Chancellor is … too fat and wheezy to preside at the Privy Council.
1892. ‘F. Anstey,’ Voces Pop., Ser. II. 13. A couple of Matrons converse in wheezy whispers.
b. transf. Making a wheezing sound.
1847. Thackeray, Love Songs, Cane-bottomed Chair. The rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet.
1859. H. Kingsley, G. Hamlyn, xii. A lean, wheezy old clock.
1889. J. K. Jerome, Three Men in Boat, ix. The strains of ‘He’s got ’em on,’ jerked … out of a wheezy accordion.
Hence Wheezily adv., Wheeziness.
1834. Hood, Tylney Hall, I. 7. The zealous functionary in the discharge of his duty on a certain night, had, by great vigilance, succeeded in catching a cold instead of apprehending a sheepstealer, and an awful wheeziness was the consequence.
1850. R. S. Surtees, in New Monthly Mag., LXXXIX. 359. ‘Oh, yes,’ replied Mr. Jogglebury, slowly and wheezily.
1884. Punch, 27 Dec., 306/2. Breath that comes not wheezily.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 288. More or less wheeziness and constriction of the chest.
