a. Now pedantic or humorous. [f. L. fūrāci- (nom. fūrax), f. fūrārī to steal + -OUS.] Given to thieving, thievish.

1

1676.  in Coles.

2

1702.  C. Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, II. App. (1852), 194. It was feared that there could be no stop given to his furacious exorbitancies any way but one; he could not be past stealing, unless he were past eating too.

3

1831.  Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), I. 393. How like is man in one place, to man every-where; equally prosing, fraudulent, and furacious, when there is anything to be got by preaching to those beneath him!

4

1842.  De Quincey, Pagan Oracles, Wks. VIII. 208, note. Greece was mendax, edax, furax (mendacious, edacious, furacious).

5

  Hence Furaciousness, Furacity, the quality of being furacious; inclination or tendency to steal.

6

1623–6.  Cockeram, Furacity.

7

1644.  J. Bulwer, Chirologia, 134. In their way of Hieroglyphique when they figured furacity or theft by a light fingered left hand put forth as it were by stealth.

8

1737.  Bailey, vol. II., Furaciousness.

9

1790.  Umfreville, Hudson’s Bay, 36. They [Indians] glory in every species of furacity and artifice.

10