a. [f. FEVER sb. + -ISH.]
1. a. Having the symptoms constituting fever (see FEVER sb. 1 a). † b. Ill of a fever (obs.).
1647. Cowley, The Mistresse, The Cure, ii.
| A Feaver is so Coole a thing, | |
| (Like drinke which feaverish men desire) | |
| That I should hope ’twould almost quench my Fire. |
1680. Burnet, Rochester, 70. It was no wonder if he had not to exact a sense of what was Good or Evil; as a Feaverish Man cannot judge of Tasts.
1701. Penn, in Pa. Hist. Soc. Mem., IX. 47. [I] have had a restless, feverish night.
1779. Johnson, Life Ascham, Wks. IV. 635. He was for some years hectically feverish.
1811. Jane Austen, Sense & Sens. III. 121. Though heavy and feverish, with a pain in her limbs, a cough, and a sore throat, a good night’s rest was to cure her entirely.
2. fig. Excited, fitful, restless, now hot now cold.
1634. Milton, Comus, 8. Men … Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being.
1670. Baxter, Cure Ch. Div., 174. To turn the native heat of Religion into a feavourish outside zeal about words.
1752. Hume, Ess. & Treat. (1777), I. 165. This feverish uncertainty and irresolution, in Human conduct, seems altogether unavoidable.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 228. A few hours of feverish joy were followed by weeks of misery.
3. † a. Pertaining to fever. Feverish matter: the impurity in the blood supposed to give rise to fever (obs.). b. Of the nature of fever; resembling fever or its symptoms.
1396. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VII. xliii. (1495), 256. Rysynge and stondynge of heere … comith in the bodi of feuerysshe matere.
1651. Biggs, New Disp., ¶ 230. The feavorish matter doth not swim in the bloud, or fluctuate in the veins, as a fish in the water.
1680. Wood, Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), II. 497. This month, Oct., and Nov., is an odde feaverish sickness dominant in the Universitie.
1695. Blackmore, Prince Arthur, I. 575.
| Her Feav’rish Thirst drinks down a Sea of Blood, | |
| Not of the impious, but the Just and Good. |
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, 324. During the Rigor, the Regimen prescrib’d in the foregoing Part of this Chapter, in the Article of Feverish Rigors, is proper in all Fevers.
1802. Med. Jrnl., VIII. 428. Its effects in abating the feverish exacerbations are so considerable.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., II. xxxii.
| For to her cheek, in feverish flood, | |
| One instant rushed the throbbing blood. |
4. Of climate, food, etc.: Apt to cause fever. Of a country: Infested by fever.
1669. Narborough, Jrnl., in Acc. Sev. Late Voy., I. (1694), 14. Albycores, a Fish larger than a Bonetto, but of that Mackrel shape, and feaverish Diet.
1803. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., I. 365. The opportunity of occupying the vast plains of Louisiana, was neglected for the feverish shore of Saint Domingo.
1879. Sir G. Campbell, White & Black, 248. In all the lower parts of the Southern States there are tracts which are exceedingly feverish in summer; but few white people live there at that season.
1885. G. S. Forbes, Wild Life in Canara, 34. The climate of Soopah was occasionally very feverish for Hindoos.
