pple. and ppl. a. Injured by exposure to frost.

1

1593.  Nashe, Christ’s Teares, Wks. (Grosart), IV. 181. Farre poorer then poore frost-bitten Snakes. Ibid. (1594), Terrors of Night, ibid., III. 267. [He] like a lanke frost-bitten plant looseth hys vigor.

2

1665.  Pepys, Diary, 21 Dec. A good chine of beef … being all frost-bitten, was most of it unroast.

3

1669.  J. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 93. The Leaves also gathered … somewhat before they are much frost-bitten.

4

1824.  W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 250. Some fruits become mellower … from having been bruised and frost-bitten.

5

1865.  Dickens, Lett., 1 March (1880), II. 226. I have been laid up here with a frost-bitten foot.

6

  fig.  1622.  Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., II. 34. The Captaine when hee heard me say so, was frost-bitten, and marvelling what the mystery of this roguerie should be, suspected there was some knaverie in it, though he knew not what.

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1634.  Ford, P. Warbeck, IV. v. Lady, I return But barren crops of early protestations, Frost-bitten in the spring of fruitless hopes.

8

1891.  C. James, Rom. Rigmarole, 60. ‘She’s ’ad what I may call a frost-bitten life of it.’

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  b.  Frost-bitten asphyxy (see quot.).

10

1822–34.  Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), III. 435. Frost-bitten Asphyxy, or that produced by intense cold.

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