[f. as prec. + -ING2.]
1. That wreathes, twists or twines; enwreathing.
1677. Dryden, State Innoc., III. 76. When your kind Eyes look’d languishing on mine, And wreathing Arms did soft embraces joyn. Ibid. (1697), Virg. Past., IV. 22. Unbidden Earth shall wreathing Ivy bring.
1718. Rowe, trans. Lucan, 180. To cast from off her Brow the wreathing Green.
1816. Byron, Siege Cor., vi. In red and wreathing columns flash’d The flame.
1842. Dickens, Amer. Notes, xiv. [To] see the wreathing water in the rapids hurrying on to take its fearful plunge.
1887. Hissey, Holiday on Road, 327. The wreathing mists and wandering clouds of such a day.
† 2. Wreathing-team, part of the gear of a plow.
Perhaps an error for wrethen WREATHEN ppl. a.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 5. He muste haue his ploughe and his … horses, and the geare that belongeth to them;… bowes, yokes, landes, stylkynges, wrethynge-temes.
Hence Wreathingly adv.
1845. J. C. Mangan, German Anthol., II. 59.
| Forget me not when sauntering by that lone | |
| Gate which the tall wild weeds encircle wreathingly. |
1891. Temple Bar Mag., Aug., 542. [The smoke] falls wreathingly upon the face of the sleeping child.
