a. Obs. or arch. Also 7 evanide. [ad. L. ēvānid-us vanishing, related to ēvānescĕre: see EVANESCE.]
1. Vanishing away; of short duration; evanescent, fleeting, transient.
1626. Bacon, Sylva (1631), § 389. The Smell of the Flower is rather Euanide and Weaker than in the Leaues.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva (1776), 372. This delicate and evanid flower [the Jasmine].
1665. Glanvill, Sceps. Sci., xxii. 139. As great a difference … as between the Sun, and an unconcocted evanid Meteor.
1699. Burnet, 39 Art., i. (1700), 35. Those Animal Spirits are of such an Evanid and Subtile Nature.
a. 1711. Ken, Edmund, Poet. Wks. 1721, II. 140. Ye trifling Honours … are th’ evanid Bubbles of Mankind.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Some authors … use the … term to express those flowers of plants whose petals fall off as soon as they are opened.
1835. W. A. Butler, in Blackw. Mag., XXXVII. 857. That misty veil Evanid, disenshrouding field and grove, Left us, a mirror of each heavenly hue.
2. Faint, weak.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., VI. xii. 338. The decoctions of simples … are dead and evanid without the commixtion of Alume, Argol, and the like.
1765. Warburton, Div. Legat., IV. vi. (ed. 4), 94. How evanid is it [Dr. Shuckford’s reasoning], therefore, when applied to a prophet under the impulse of inspiration.
† 3. = EMPHATICAL 5.
1663. Boyle, Exp. on Colours, I. iv. (1664), 77. A Difference betwixt these Apparent colours, and those that are wont to be esteem’d Genuine, as to the Duration, which has induc’d some Learned Men to call the former rather Evanid than Fantastical.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., Evanid colours are the same with those otherwise called fantastical, and emphatical colours.
Hence Evanidness. Obs.
1659. H. More, Immort. Soul (1662), 151. Fooleries much derogatory to the Truth, and that pinch our Perception into such an intolerable streightness and evanidness, that [etc.].
1731–6. in Bailey.
1775. in Ash.
