a. Now rare. Also 7 funeste. [ad. F. funeste, ad. L. fūnestus, f. fūnus: see FUNERAL.] Causing or portending death or evil; fatal, deadly, disastrous; deeply deplorable.
1654. trans. Scudery’s Curia Politiæ, 96. How funest and direfull must my conceptions be, looking upon her prison all hanged with black.
1671. True Non-conf., 418. This execution was … one of the funeste effects of the war.
1727. Swift, God’s Rev. agst. Punning, Wks. 1755, III. I. 169. Scarce had this unhappy nation recovered these funest disasters.
1865. Longf., To Italy, 3. The dower funest of infinite wretchedness.
Hence † Funestal, † Funestous adjs. [see -AL, -OUS] = FUNEST. † Funestate v. [f. L. fūnestāt- : see -ATE3.] trans. To make funest or disastrous (Cockeram, 1623). † Funestation [see -ATION], ‘pollution by touching a dead body’ (Coles, 1676).
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 187. A great number of mennes bones lying in a court or yarde nere vnto this funestal place.
1647. W. Browne, trans. Polexander, I. 90. Have pity on a wretch to whom both life and death are equally funestous.
1650. Howell, Giraffe’s Rev. Naples, 69. With such funestous preparatifs.
1689. Myst. Iniq., 10. That funestous War betwixt Charles the First and the Parliament.
