Fuliginous

a. Also 7 -enous, -inus. [ad. L. fūlīginōs-us, f. fūlīgo soot: see -OUS. Cf. F. fuligineux, -euse.]

  1.  Pertaining to, consisting of, containing, or resembling soot; sooty.

1621.  Burton, Anat. Mel., I. ii. II. v. It offends commonly if it be to hote & dry, or too cold and dry, thick, fuligenous, cloudy, blustering, or a tempestuous Aire.

1638.  Wilkins, New World, I. (1684), 73. This Fuliginus matter, which did thus obscure the Sun, must needs be very near his Body.

1646.  Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., VI. xii. 334. A sootish and fuliginous matter proceeding from the sulphur of bodies torrified.

1684.  Evelyn, Diary, 24 Jan. London … was so filled with the fuliginous steam of the sea-coal, that hardly could one see across the streets.

1731.  Hales, Stat. Ess., I. 260. In great cities where the air is full of fuliginous vapours.

1822.  Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. Praise of Chimneysweepers. The fuliginous concretions, which are sometimes found (in dissections) to adhere to the roof of the mouth in these unfledged practitioners.

1842.  De Quincey, Pagan Oracles, Wks. VIII. 222. A huge octagon lamp, that apparently never had been cleaned from smoke and fuliginous tarnish.

  fig.  c. 1645.  Howell, Lett. (1650), II. 107. Prayer compar’d with praise, is but a fuliginous smoak issuing from the sense of sin.

1761.  Sterne, Tr. Shandy, III. xix. His ideas … all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!

1845.  Carlyle, Cromwell (1871), IV. 3. A very flamy fuliginous set of doctrines,—such as the human mind, superadding Anabaptistry to Sansculottism, can make some attempt to conceive.

1860.  Trollope, Cast. Richmond, II. 80. The debate went on … with many sparks … of eager benevolence, and some few passing clouds of fuliginous self-interest.

  b.  Covered or blackened with soot. Chiefly in humorously bombastic use.

a. 1763.  [see FULIGINOUSLY].

1843.  Carlyle, Past & Pr., III. xv. To that dingy fuliginous Operative, emerging from his soot-mill.

1865.  Dublin Univ. Mag., II. 32. A fuliginous suburb of factories.

a. 1876.  M. Collins, Pen Sketches (1879), I. 59. The pleasant gardens … are a delight and a luxury to the Londoner escaped from some close fuliginous domicile.

1884.  Pall Mall G., 16 Oct., 1/1. All the world is peering down the fuliginous chimney.

  † 2.  In old physiology applied to certain thick ‘vapours’ or ‘exhalations’ said to be formed by organic combustion, and noxious to the head and vital parts. Obs.

1574.  Newton, Health Mag., 53. In goodnes those apples excell all others that are called Regia poma, which are not altogether so colde, and are thought to be very holesom and comfortatiue to the harte because they repell and driue away al fuliginous moyste vapours which trouble the harte & strike vp into the head.

1621.  Burton, Anat. Mel., II. v. I. iv. It is not amiss to bore the scull with an instrument to let out the fuliginous vapours.

1664.  Power, Experimental Philosophy, I. 57. I could never see the grosser steams that continually perspire out of our own Bodies, which you see will foil and besmear a polished Glass at any time; and which are the fuliginous Eructations of that internal fire, that constantly burns within us.

1725.  Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Bath, It will be attended with these two Advantages, viz. the Dissipation of the fuliginous Excrements, and drawing out the superfluous Humours.

  3.  (Chiefly Nat. Hist.) Soot-colored, dusky.

1688.  R. Holme, Armoury, II. 290. The upper part of the Body is brown, or fulgineous (sic).]

1822–34.  Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), I. 339. A morbid deep-coloured bile, fulvous, greenish, or fuliginous.

1826.  Kirby & Sp., Entomol. IV. 282. Fuliginous, the opaque black of soot.

1869.  O. W. Holmes, Cinders from Ashes, in Old Vol. Life (1891), 247. An older and much bigger boy, or youth, with a fuliginous complexion.

1874.  Coues, Birds N. W., 642. Entire plumage deep sooty or fuliginous blackish; all the feathers, but especially those of the back aod upper wing-coverts, edged with grayish-white.

  Hence Fuliginously adv., Fuliginousness.

1576.  Newton, Lemnie’s Complex. (1633), 222. When this sinke of Melancholy is once exhausted, and all fuliginousnesse banished.

1652.  French, Yorksh. Spa, ii. 27. According to the fuliginousness of vapours more or less recoiling, the fire is more or less choaked.

a. 1763.  Shenstone, Wks. (1764), I. 114.

1837.  Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. II. iii. Military France is everywhere full of sour inflammatory humour, which exhales itself fuliginously, this way or that.