[f. as prec. + -ING2.] That fades, in various senses of the vb.
1535. Coverdale, Isa. xxviii. 1. The faydinge floure.
1576. A. Fleming, A Panoplie of Epistles, 364. What followeth but meere confusion, and a hotch potche … with vadeing shadowes, and vncertaine vanities.
1655. Fuller, The Church-History of Britain, I. iv. § 5. Wonder not that he being presently to tast of Ioyes for ever more, should wish for fading Water.
1658. T. Goodwin, Fair Prospect, 37. Like a cupboard of glasses, fair to the eye, but very brittle and fading.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., II. x. (1695), 71. The Pictures drawn in our Minds, are laid in fading Colours; and if not sometiomes refreshed, vanish and disappear.
1804. J. Grahame, The Sabbath, 5.
| Mingled with fading flowers, | |
| That yester-morn bloom’d waving in the breeze. |
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. vii. 57. The fading light warned me that it was time to return.
b. Bot. Of the petals: Withering before fertilization is completed.
1776. Withering, Brit. Plants (1796), I. 218. Petals 6, spear-shaped, upright below the middle, but expanding and flat above, permanent, but fading.
Hence Fadingly adv., Fadingness, tendency to fade.
1838. Tait’s Mag., V. Jan., 36/2.
| Beneath the blue and bending sky, | |
| Where the cold moonshine fadingly | |
| Struggled amid the blaze of gold | |
| That from the fount of radiance rolled. |
18[?]. ? Keats To——, ii., Poems (1889), II. 223.
| Do not look so sad, sweet one,— | |
| Sad and fadingly; | |
| Shed one drop, then it is gone, | |
| O ’twas born to die. |
1648. W. Montagu, Miscellanea Spiritualia: or Devout Essaies, II. xi. § 3 (1654), 231. This befals them, when beautie (the fadingness whereof is the greatest detector and impeacher of our frailtie) proves an insurer of the lastingness of this life.
1735. Dict. Polygraphicum, Fadingness is represented in painting, by a lady clad in green [etc.].
