1. Formed by or as by wreathing, wrying, twisting or twining; arranged or disposed in coils, curves or twists; contorted, twisted.
In frequent use from c. 1590 to c. 1630.
c. 1530. Tindale, Exod. xxviii. 14. Thou shalt make … cheynes off fine golde: lynkeworke and wrethed, and fasten the wrethed cheynes to the hokes.
1535. in Bury Wills (Camden), 127. My ij wrethed rynges of gold.
1587. A. Day, Daphnis & Chloe (1890), 14. Yong rammes … with their wreathed hornes.
1605. B. Jonson, Masque, Blackness ¶ 1. Musique made out of wreathed shells.
1608. Sir H. Plat, Garden of Eden (1653), 142. Winding the young stock about the stick,… it will grow in a wreathed form.
1665. G. Havers, P. della Valle’s Trav. E. India, 114. [The] Diadem … might have been of wreath’d Linnen, or Gold, or other solid matter.
a. 1711. Ken, Psyche, Poet. Wks. 1721, IV. 273. Unicorns … with their terrible wreath’d Hornes.
1743. Davidson, Virgil, Æneid, VII. 351. A chain of wreathed gold.
1817. Shelley, Rev. Islam, I. x. The Eagle … unremittingly assailed The wreathed Serpent.
1820. P. Nicholson, Staircases, p. iv. The geometrical construction of the wreathed part of the Rail.
1844. Kinglake, Eöthen, xx. The short and proudly wreathed lip.
1908. [Miss Fowler], Betw. Trent & Ancholme, 362. The fog at times lies wreathed, white and still.
fig. c. 1586. C’tess Pembroke, Ps. CXIX. D iii. From falshoods wreathed way, O save me, Lord.
1846. J. C. Mangan, Poems (1903), 95. Whence flowed the tones Of silver lyres, And many voices in wreathed swell.
† b. Corrugated; wrinkled. Obs.
1567. Maplet, Gr. Forest, 42. The Fig tree;… all his Wood not so plaine, as wrethed & wrinckled.
1656. Beale, Heref. Orchards (1657), 12. You shall find the better-tasted fruit to be more wrethed or wrinckled.
c. Formed by wreathing the countenance.
1633. Milton, L’Allegro, 28. Nods, and Becks, and Wreathed Smiles.
† 2. Crossed, folded; also, having the arms folded.
1588. Shaks., L. L. L., IV. iii. 135. Longauile Did … neuer lay his wreathed armes athwart His louing bosome, to keepe downe his heart.
1595. Markham, Sir R. Grinvile, iv. Thetis … with wreath’d armes.
1599. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., III. ii. Another … walks off melancholic, and stands wreath’d As he were pinn’d up to the arras.
3. a. Of columns, etc.: Twisted or shaped in a screw-like form; contorted.
1624. Wotton, Elem. Archit., 31. Wreathed, and Vined, and Figured Columnes, which our Author himselfe condemneth.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 25 March 1644. Some of the columns wreathed, others spiral.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 596. Wreathed columns; such as are twisted in the form of a screw.
1842. Gwilt, Archit., 1053. Wreathed columns … are … very appropriately called contorted columns.
† b. Having a spirally grooved bore; rifled. Obs.
1681. R. Cromwell, Lett., in Eng. Hist. Rev. (1898), XIII. 96. The little gun … is not so propper for shott it being a wreathed barrell.
4. Formed or combined by twining or interweaving; entwined, intertwined.
1578. H. Wotton, Courtlie Controv., 8. A banquet … vnder a wreathed arbor of Laurell, Iessemen, Holly, and Iuy. Ibid. A banke of wrethed boughes.
1633. T. Adams, Exp. 2 Pet. ii. 4. 524. These chaines,… were they of cords, of wreathed trees, of iron,… might bee burst asunder.
1633. G. Herbert, Temple, Wreath, 1. A Wreathed garland of deserved praise.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 468/2. Two Serpents in Fesse to the sinister; wreathed, respecting. Ibid. Two Snakes wreathed in pale.
1795. H. Tooke, Purley, II. 256. A raddle hedge, is a hedge of … twisted or wreathed twigs or boughs.
1817. Dugdale’s Monasticon, I. 1. Here St. Joseph … erected,… of wreathed twigs, the first Christian oratory in England.
1828. Tennyson, Lover’s Tale, II. 43. They vanish’d … Beneath the bower of wreathed eglantines.
transf. 1782. Warton, On Sir J. Reynolds’s Painted Window, 24. Where Superstition with capricious hand In many a maze the wreathed window plann’d.
fig. 1820. Keats, Ode to Psyche, 60. A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreath’d trellis of a working brain.
5. Covered, decked or encompassed by a wreath or wreaths; garlanded.
1819. Keats, Lamia, I. 38. When from this wreathed tomb shall I awake?
1847. Longf., in Life (1891), II. 76. Byron’s wild and wicked travesty … hits the Laureate [sc. Southey] hard on his wreathed head.
1897. Daily News, 30 June, 6/2. The wreathed coffin was conveyed … to the burial ground.
b. Her. Encircled with a twisted band or wreath.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 473/2. A Flower de Lis Wreathed, or in the middle Wreathed. Ibid., 393/2. A Sarazens Head … wreathed about the temples.
1838. Penny Cycl., XII. 143/2. Heads are also blazoned wreathed or banded, as the case may be.
c. In the specific names of birds (see quots.).
Frequently used by Latham.
1781. Latham, Gen. Synop. Birds, I. 358. Wreathed Hornbill;… on the top of the upper mandible is an appendage … rounded at top. Ibid. (1785), v. 216. Wreathed Plover;… round the crown runs a list of white, encircling the head like a wreath.
1819. Stephens, in Shaw’s Gen. Zool., XI. 488. Wreathed Pluvian. Pluvianus coronatus,… [= Latham’s] Wreathed Plover.
1823. Latham, Gen. Hist. Birds, VII. 140. Wreathed Warbler…. From the eye round to the nape a white ling, passing backwards, and surrounding it as a wreath at the back part.
Hence Wreathedness. rare–0.
1730. Bailey (fol.), Contorteousness, wreathedness.
