a. and sb. Obs. Also 6 con-. [irreg. f. COMFORT v. + -IVE; comfort- being treated as the L. ppl. stem, as in abort-ive, assert-ive.] = COMFORTATIVE.
A. adj.
1377–1400. Langl., P. Pl., B. XV. 213. Companable and confortatyf [MS. C. confortif].
1503. Hawes, Examp. Virt., v. 63. Lete wysedome than be to the[e] comfortyfe.
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate, Wks. (1653), 385. Cordial and comfortive remedies.
1801. W. Taylor, in Monthly Mag., XII. 100/1. Those words are impurely employed, to which an active sense is sometimes assigned. The Ephesian matron was a comfortable widow: but not Warm baths are most comfortable: where comforting, or comfortive, is intended.
B. sb.
1584. Leycesters Commonw. (1641), 34. I muse why hee chose rather to make her away by open violence then by some Italian confortive.
1588. Greene, Alcida, Wks. (Grosart), IX. 94. Precious comfortives to incourage her champion. Ibid. (1593), Mamillia, II. Wks. II. 231. Not a comfortive to lengthen her life, but a corasive to shorten her dayes.
