[f. as prec. + -ING2.]
Respiring, living; blowing; emitting fragrance; taxing the breath, etc.; in the various senses of the verb.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. xxxv. (1495), 147. Euery brethynge beest hath lounges.
1591. Spenser, Virgil’s Gnat, xxiv. Gentle murmure of the breathing ayre.
1595. Shaks., John, II. i. 419. Rescue those breathing liues to dye in beds.
1684. Bunyan, Pilgr., II. 66. Christiana began to Pant, and said, I dare say this is a breathing Hill.
1747. Collins, Eclog., III. 6. Or scent the breathing maize at setting day.
1777. Sir W. Jones, Pal. Fortune, 26. Incense-breathing gales perfum’d the grove.
1816. Southey, Lay of Laureate, Dream, 62. Infant man … Most weak and helpless of all breathing things.
1845. Hood, Decl. Chivalry, ix. A battle was a battle then, A breathing piece of work.
b. fig. Of pictures and statues: Life-like (cf. Vergil’s spirantia signa, æra).
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., II. 646. Breathing Figures of Corinthian Brass.
c. 1750. Shenstone, Elegy, xi. 22. The breathing picture and the living stone.
1813. Shelley, Q. Mab, 17. That lovely outline … fair As breathing marble.
† c. Breathing with or from: fresh from. Obs.
c. 1534. Pol. Verg. Eng. Hist. (1846), I. 274. Hee sawe his enemies stand … freshe and breathinge from the late spoylinge of his contrie.
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turkes (1621), 881. Canalis and Quirinus yet breathing with the late slaughter of the Turkes. Ibid., 1227. Yet breathing with victorie.
d. Breathing-sweat: a profuse perspiration.
1744. Wall, in Phil. Trans., XLIII. 216. After the second Dose of the Powders, each of them … broke out into an universal breathing Sweat.
1776. Anderson, ibid., LXVI. 545. It brought on a breathing sweat.
