Also 7 frost-bit. trans. † To injure with intense cold, also fig.; to invigorate by exposure to the frost (obs.); to get (oneself or one’s limbs) frost-bitten.

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1611.  Coryat’s Crudities, Panegyricke Verses, G iii b.

        Where Emilia faire thou didst fro’st-bit,
And shee inflamed thy melting wit.

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1667.  Pepys, Diary, 2 Jan. My wife up, and with Mrs. Pen to walk in the fields to frost-bite themselves.

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1856.  Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxix. 403. Morton has frostbitten both his heels; I hope not soo severely, for the indurated skin of the heel makes it a bad region for suppuration.

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  b.  fig. To whiten.

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a. 1618.  J. Davies, Wittes Pilgrimage, xcvii. Wks. (Grosart), 19. Many winters haue Frost-bit my Haires.

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  So Frost-biting vbl. sb.; Frost-biting ppl. a., intensely cold. lit. and fig.

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1593.  Tell-Troth’s N. Y. Gift, 23. If shee had beene neuer so little out of his sight, he thought it was the spring time, being but Christmas; to stay the forwardnes whereof, his frost-biting wordes should nippe her.

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1633.  Henry Montagu, Earl of Manchester, Manchester al Mondo (1636), 28. The graine cast into the earth, after a frost-biting, comes up the fairer.

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1635.  L. Foxe, N. W. Foxe, 171. Such as had been upon those Frost-biting voyages.

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1711.  Swift, Lett. (1767), III. 243. Pray walk when the frost comes, young ladies, go a frost-biting.

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1817–8.  Cobbett, Resid. U. S. (1822), 202. If the cold be such as to produce danger of frost-biting, you must take care not to drink strong liquors.

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1895.  C. Markham in Westm. Gaz., 5 Sept., 7/1. The only effect of this was to stop the circulation and make frost-biting all the easier.

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