a. Erroneously cirrhous. [f. L. cirr-us curl + -OUS: corresp. to F. cirreux.]
† 1. lit. (see quot.)
1681. Blount, Glossogr., Cirrous, belonging to curled hair or to any hairy substance.
1692. in Coles.
2. Bot. and Zool. Of the nature of a cirrus or cirri; bearing cirri, filamentous.
1658. Sir T. Browne, Gard. Cyrus, iv. The cirrous parts [of Ivy] commonly conceived but as tenacles and hold-fasts unto it.
1835. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (1848), II. 356. Cirrhous…; terminated by a spiral, or flexuose, filiform appendage.
1836–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat., II. 30/2. The dorsal rays simple, filiform, cirrhous.
3. Of or pertaining to cirrus-clouds.
1815. T. Forster, Res. Atmosph. Phenom., ii. § 1. 51. A sky full of cirrous streaks.
1816. Month. Mag., XLII. 35. The cirrous clouds have a bristly … look.
1872. Black, Adv. Phaeton, I. v. 81. The clouds that still remained overhead had parted into long cirrhous lines.
