Florid

a. [ad. (directly or through Fr. floride, Cotgr. in sense 6) L. flōrid-us (related to flōrēre to bloom: see -ID), f. flōr-, flōs flower.]

  † 1.  Blooming with flowers; abounding in or covered with flowers; flowery. Obs.

1656.  Blount, Glossogr., Florid, garnished with flowers.

1667.  Milton, P. L., VII. 90.

  † b.  Consisting of flowers, floral.

1665.  Boyle, Occas. Refl., III. iv. (1675), 151. Those, who are wont to make Fires not against Winter, but against Cold, have generally displac’d the florid, and the verdent Ornaments of their Chimneys.

1678.  H. Vaughan, Thalia Rediv., Daphnis, 70.

a. 1682.  Sir T. Browne, Tracts (1684), ii. 91–2. Our florid and purely ornamental Garlands, delightfull unto sight and smell, nor framed according to mystical and symbolical considerations, are of more free election, and so may be made to excell those of the Ancients.

  2.  fig. Profusely adorned as with flowers; elaborately or luxuriantly ornate. Often in somewhat disparaging sense: Excessively ornate.

  a.  Of composition, speech, etc.: Abounding in ornaments or flowers of rhetoric; full of fine words and phrases; flowery.

1656.  Cowley, Pindar. Odes, Notes, Wks. (1710), I. 238. Apollo is not only the God of Physick, but of Poetry, and all kind of Florid Learning.

1658–9.  Burton’s Diary (1828), IV. 131. He made a very florid speech, and told us how many ways the Spaniard did make them subject, that he conquered.

1712.  Addison, Spect., No. 321, 8 March, ¶ 3. The Expressions are more florid and elaborate in these Descriptions than in most other Parts of the Poem.

1782.  V. Knox, Ess. (1819), II. lxi. 17. Several of the poems of Politian are florid to excess, and far beyond that boundary which Augustan taste so finely delineates.

1814.  Scott, Wav., xiv. Upon subjects which interested him, and when quite at ease, he possessed that flow of natural, and somewhat florid eloquence, which has been supposed as powerful even as figure, fashion, fame, or fortune, in winning the female heart.

1878.  Morley, Crit. Misc., Vauvenargues, 6. The Éloge in which Vauvenargues commemorates the virtues and the pitiful fate of his friend, is too deeply marked with the florid and declamatory style of youth to be pleasing to a more ripened taste.

  b.  Of a person or his attributes: Addicted to the use of flowery language or rhetorical ornament.

1671.  Gumble, Life of Monck, Ep. Ded. This Subject required a … more florid Pen than mine.

1691.  Wood, Ath. Oxon., I. 164. He [Edmond Campian] took holy orders according to the Church of England … and became a florid Preacher.

1735.  Pope, Prol. Sat., 317.

1759.  Robertson, Hist. Scot. (1817), I. I. 211. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, John Major and Hector Boethius published their histories of Scotland, the former a succinct and dry writer, the latter a copious and florid one, and both equally credulous.

  c.  Of attire, manners, methods of procedure, etc.: Highly ornate; showy, ostentatious.

1816.  J. Scott, Vis. Paris (ed. 5), 172. It is an easy thing for a tyrannical sovereign to issue his orders, of a morning, that a pillar should be put up, or a market place be built; but the next minute his ambition will do more to check the welfare of his subjects, than whole years of his florid and unnatural patronage could counteract.

1855.  Thackeray, Newcomes, I. 231. A florid apparel becomes some men, as simple raiment suits others.

1876.  C. M. Davies, Unorth. Lond., 89. There are nearly fifty clergy in different vestments, and the ritual is altogether of a more florid character.

  3.  spec. in technical use.

  a.  Music. (See quots. 1879, 1888.)

1708.  [see FIGURATE a. 4.].

1774.  Burney, Hist. Mus. (1789), I. vi. 80. Our florid-song, it cannot be dissembled, is not always sufficiently subservient to poetry; for in applying music to words, it frequently happens that the finest sentiments and most polished verses of modern languages are injured and rendered unintelligible, by an inattention to prosody.

1875.  Ouseley, Mus. Form, ix. 49. Vary the accompaniments by introducing more florid figures and rapid passages.

1879.  Grove, Dict. Mus., Florid. Music in rapid figures, divisions, or passages, the stem of the simple melody bursting forth, as it were, into leaves and flowers.

1888.  Stainer & Barrett, Dict. Mus. Terms, Florid counterpoint, a counterpoint not confined to any special species, but in which notes of various lengths are used.

  b.  Arch. Enriched with decorative details.

a. 1704.  Evelyn, Architects & Archit., Misc. Writings (1825), 422. How oddly would the Tuscan or Doric become the Corinthian coifure, or the spruce and florid Corinthian a Tuscan entablature.

1815.  J. Smith, The Panorama of Science and Art, I. 151. The next [style] is often called florid, as if it were richer in ornament.

1838.  Murray’s Hand-bk. N. Germ., 111. The exterior, in, the most elegant florid Gothic, dates from 1533.

1886.  Willis & Clark, Cambridge, II. XIV. iv. 526. The two ranges of Nevile’s Court, as thus completed, were in a florid style of Jacobean architecture, raised upon the arcades of a cloister.

  † 4.  Of blooming appearance; strikingly beautiful or attractive; brilliant. Of colour: Bright, resplendent. Obs.

1642.  H. More, Song of Soul, II. ii. I. v.

1664.  Bulteel, Birinthea, 133. Whilst he was thus in quest, his unhappiness met a woman, who under the bewitching appearance of a florid beauty, cover’d the poisonous sentiments of a most vicious soul.

1677.  Plot, Oxfordsh., 58. It gave the skin so florid a whiteness, that I dare pronounce it a good Cosmetick.

1725.  Butler, Serm., vi. 113. This would correct the florid and gaudy Prospects and Expectations which we are too apt to indulge.

1770.  H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1771), IV. 140. The weeping-willow and every florid shrub, each tree of delicate or bold leaf, are new tints in the composition of our gardens.

  5.  Of the complection (or the color of a part of the body): Rosy or ruddy, flushed with red.

1650.  Jer. Taylor, Holy Living, ii. § 4. 101. When it [our beauty] is most florid and gay, three fits of an ague can change it into yellownesse and leanness, and the hollowness and wrinkles of deformity.

1665.  Phil. Trans., I. 118. This Maid was then in good health, and onely let Blood because she never had her Courses, yet of a very florid clear Complexion.

1707.  Floyer, Physic. Pulse-Watch, 60. The Blood of such Persons is thick and florid, and their Urine and Face yellowish, and high florid Colour in the Cheeks, their Bodies are plump, feel hot.

1781.  Gibbon, Decline & Fall, III. xlviii. 45. In strength and beauty he [Romanus] was conspicuous above his equals: tall and straight as a young cypress, his complexion was fair and florid, his eyes sparkling, his shoulders broad, his nose long and aquiline.

1800.  Med. Jrnl., IV. 155. The gums of the patient never bled after its first administration; they became florid on the third day.

1865.  Trollope, Belton Estate, iii. 26. A decidedly handsome man with a florid face, but still, perhaps, with something of the promised roughness of the farmer.

  † b.  Of the blood: Bright red (i.e., arterial).

1651.  trans. Bacon’s Life & Death, 64. Now the Spirit is repaired, from the Lively and Floride Bloud of the small Arteries, which are inserted into the Braine.

1731.  Arbuthnot, Aliments, 121. The Qualities of the Blood in a healthy State are to be florid when let out of the Vessel, the red Part congealing strongly an soon together in a Mass moderately tenaceous, swimming in the Serum, which ought to be without any very yellow or greenish cast.

1797.  M. Baillie, Morb. Anat. (1807), 40. In this child a florid blood must have been always circulating between the lungs and the left side of the heart, except for the admixture of the dark blood which passed throught the small communication of the foramen ovale.

  6.  Flourishing, lively, vigorous; in the bloom of health. Now rare.

1656.  Artif. Handsom., 76. Our hair should turn white, (like snow in summer, falling on green and florid trees) to a kind of monstrosity and deformity.

1669.  W. Simpson, Hydrol. Chym., 31. The circulation of the blood and humours become thereby more florid.

1713.  Steele, Guardian, No. 2, 13 March, ¶ 1. I have the honour to be well known to Mr. Josiah Pullen, of our hall abovementioned; and attribute the florid old age I now enjoy to my constant morning walks up Hedington-Hill in his cheerful company.

1725.  Pope, Odyss., IV. 1095.

1748.  Hume, Hum. Und., i. 10. ’Tis with some Minds as with some Bodies, which, being endow’d with vigorous and florid Health, require severe Exercise, and reap a Pleasure from what, to the Generality of Mankind, may seem burthensome and laborious.

1858.  Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., II. VI. ix. 128. Wilhelmina, formerly almost too florid, is gone to a shadow.