1. trans. To feed or furnish with fuel. lit. and fig.
c. 1592. Marlowe, Massacre Paris, I. i. The native sparks of princely love … May still be fuell’d in our progeny.
1609. W. M., Man in Moone (1849), 12. It sendeth forth such mistes, fogges, and vapours, five chimnies, well fewel’d, vent not more smoake then his mouth and nostrils.
1647. Cowley, Mistress, Despair, ii.
| Never (alas) that dreadfull name, | |
| Which fewells the infernal. flame. |
a.. 1711. Ken, Hymnarium, Poet. Wks. 1721, II. 130. Wealth fuel’d Sin.
1733. Cheyne, Eng. Malady, II. viii. § 8 (1734), 204. Neglecting the Means, or fuelling the Disease by a Mal-Regimen, it will certainly terminate sooner or later in those real Distempers.
1811. W. R. Spencer, Poems, 120, ‘Love out of Place.’
| He pretends to require, growing older and older, | |
| A nurse more expert his chill fits to remove; | |
| But sure ev’ry Heart will grow colder and colder | |
| Whose fires are not lighted and fuel’d by Love! |
1817. Coleridge, Sibyl. Leaves (1862), 129. The magic cauldron of a fervid and ebullient fancy, constantly fuelled by an unexampled opulence of language.
1859. Ld. Lytton, Wanderer (ed. 2), 167.
| Talk of the flames of Hell! | |
| We fuel ourselves, I conceive, | |
| The fire the Fiend lights. Well, | |
| Believe or disbelieve, | |
| We know more than we tell! |
1869. Blackmore, Lorna D., xvi. I would not put a trunk of wood on the fire in the kitchen, but let Annie scold me well, with a smile to follow, and with her own plump hands lift up a little log and fuel it.
2. intr. To get fuel.
1880. Dixon, Windsor, IV. ii. 14. Time out of mind poor people had enjoyed the right of fuelling in the park and forest.
