Forms: 5 furey, 4–6 furye, 4–7 -ie, 5– fury. [a. F. furie (14th c. in Littré), ad. L. furia, related to furĕre to rage, be mad. (OFr. had originally fuire).]

1

  1.  Fierce passion, disorder or tumult of mind approaching madness; esp. wild anger, frenzied rage; also, a fit or access of such passion.

2

  The pl. is sometimes used in imitation of F. furies or L. furiæ.

3

c. 1374.  Chaucer, Troylus, IV. 817 (845). Anoy, smert, drede, fury and eek siknesse. Ibid., V. 212. To bedde he goth and weyleth there and torneth In furie, as dooth he, Ixion, in helle.

4

c. 1430.  Lydg., Min. Poems, 206. Sobre and appeese suche folk as falle in furye.

5

1491.  Act 7 Hen. VII., c. 15. Certeyn persones … murdred … in an outrageous hedy furey … John Mountagu late Erle of Sarum.

6

1564.  Child Marriages, etc. (1897), 123. Biecause the wordes were spoken in a furye.

7

1611.  Bible, Gen. xxvii. 44. And tary with him a few dayes, vntill thy brothers furie turne away.

8

1621.  Burton, Anat. Mel., III. iv. I. i. 706. As Plato doth in his Conuiuio make mention of two distinct furies; and amongst our Neotericks, Hercules de Saxonia … doth expressly treat of it [religious melancholy] in a distinct Species.

9

a. 1683.  A. Sidney, Disc. Govt., I. xix. (1704), 46. This would be a Spur to excite even the most sleeping Lusts; and a Poison that would fill the gentlest Spirits with the most violent Furys.

10

1692.  Dryden, St. Evremont’s Ess., 351. He … fell into such strange furies, that [etc.].

11

1704.  F. Fuller, Med. Gymn. (1705), 159. (Hypochondria), ’Tis the first Fury that is the most Dangerous and Violent.

12

1713.  Swift, etc., Frenzy J. Dennis, Wks. 1755, III. I. 146. He flung down the book in a terrible fury.

13

1756.  Burke, Vind. Nat. Soc., Wks. I. 37. When Alexander had in his fury inhumanly butchered one of his best friends.

14

1866.  Conington, Æneid, XII. 410. Such furies in his bosom rise.

15

1879.  Farrar, St. Paul (1883), 118. He could hardly have addressed them in words more calculated to kindle their fury.

16

  b.  of beasts.

17

1592.  Shaks., Rom. & Jul., III. iii. 111. Thy wild acts denote The vnreasonable Furie of a beast.

18

1611.  Bible, Wisd. vii. 20. The natures of liuing creatures, and the furies of wilde beasts.

19

1698.  J. Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, 298. A large Camel, raging with Lust for the Female … This Fury lasts Forty Days, when they Foam at the Mouth, and are very Unruly, at other times nothing being more Governable.

20

1727.  Swift, Gulliver, II. vii. Unable to defend himself from Inclemencies of the Air, or the Fury of wild Beasts.

21

1774.  Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), IV. 288. In such a case, there was no method of appeasing its fury, but by giving it something to eat.

22

  2.  Fierce impetuosity or violence; esp. warlike rage, fierceness in conflict, attack, or the like. † Rarely, fierce cruelty.

23

1534.  Elyot, trans. Isocrates’ Doctr. Princes, 9 b. Dooe thou nothyng in furie, sens other men knowe what time and occasion is meetest for the.

24

1553.  Brende, Q. Curtius, IV. 42 b. Two thousand whome the furye of the slaughter had lefte on lyue.

25

1601.  R. Johnson, Relations of the Most Famous Kingdoms, etc. (1603), 41. In assaulting of tounes and fortresses, I confesse furie to be of great moment. Ibid. (1630), 13. If ever your eares heard of more hellish furies than those which these Princes have put in execution.

26

1712.  Pope, Spect., No. 408, ¶ 7. ’Tis fit the Fury of the Coursers should not be too great for the Strength of the Charioteer.

27

1726.  Adv. Capt. R. Boyle, 155. The Fight continu’d half an Hour with the utmost Fury.

28

1769.  Junius Lett., xv. 65. The extremes of alternate indolence or fury … have governed your whole administration.

29

1805.  Scott, Last Minstr., I. vii. The furies of the Border war.

30

1856.  Emerson, Eng. Traits, Race, Wks. (Bohn), II. 31. To hunt with fury … all the game that is in nature.

31

  b.  Hist. The (Spanish) Fury: the massacre perpetrated by the Spaniards at Antwerp in Oct.–Nov., 1576.

32

1576.  Heton, Lett., 10 Nov., in Arb., Garner, VIII. 166. To answer and content the Spanish soldiers and others who, in the Fury, entered our said House.

33

1855.  Motley, Rise Dutch Repub., III. 116. It was called the Spanish Fury, by which dread name it has been known for ages.

34

  3.  transf. of things (e.g., of a tempest, the wind, a raging malady, etc.).

35

1585.  T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy. Turkie, II. xi. 46 b. In despite of the rayne, wind & furye of the sea.

36

1599.  R. Linche, Anc. Fiction, V ij a. Those places which, by the ardent furie of the sunnes vertue, become drie.

37

1662.  Stillingfl., Orig. Sacr., III. iv. § 5. These waters falling down with so much fury and violence.

38

1697.  Dampier, Voy., I. xiii. 348. Before the Winds abated of their fury.

39

1698.  J. Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, 235. It had been utterly impossible to have drawn Breath in this Place, had not the late unusual Rain something allayed the Fury of the Heats.

40

1726.  Adv. Capt. R. Boyle, 127. I observ’d several of the Natives undress themselves with a great deal of Precipitation, make up their Cloaths in a Bundle, and sit on ’em stark naked; and all their Care was to keep ’em from the Wet, leaving their naked Bodies expos’d to the Fury of the Storm.

41

1742.  Lond. & Country Brew., I. (ed. 4), 51. For retarding and keeping back any Drink that is too much heated in working … it may be broke into several other Tubs, where, by its shallow Lying, it will be taken off its Fury.

42

1756.  C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, I. 217. In less than a month, all his former complaints rage with more than double fury.

43

1887.  Bowen, Virg. Æneid, I. 69. Arm with fury the winds.

44

  b.  phr. Like fury: furiously, ‘like mad,’ colloq.

45

1840.  Longf., in Life (1891), I. 359. The last eighteen miles it rained like fury.

46

  4.  Inspired frenzy, as of one possessed by a god or demon; esp. poetic ‘rage.’ Now rare.

47

1546.  Langley, Pol. Verg. De Invent., I. xix. 33 b. When they prophesie in manner of furie, and rauishinge of mynde.

48

1563.  R. Googe, Eglogs, i. (Arb.), 32.

        O Cupyde kynge of fyerye Loue,
  ayde thou my syngynge Verse,
And teache me heare the cause and case,
  Of Louers to reherse,
Direct my tong, in trothe to treade,
  with Furye fyll my brayne,
That I may able be to tell,
  the cause of Louers payne.

49

1581.  Sidney, Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 72. They are so beloued of the Gods, that whatsoeuer they write, proceeds of a diuine fury.

50

1597.  Morley, Introd. Mus., 35. This hath been a mightie musicall furie, which hath caused him to shewe such diuersitie in so small bounds.

51

1604.  Shaks., Oth., III. iv. 72.

        A Sybill that had numbred in the world
The Sun to course, two hundred compasses,
In her Prophetticke furie sow’d the Worke.

52

1676.  Hobbes, Iliad, Preface (1686), 5–6. For in Fancie consisteth he Sublimity of a Poet, which is that Poetical Fury which the Readers for the most part call for.

53

1703.  Pope, Thebais, 3.

                    A sacred fury fires
My ravish’d breast, and all the Muse inspires.

54

1707.  Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 74. All that Enthusiasm or poetick Fury could inspire.

55

  5.  One of the avenging deities (L. Furiæ, Diræ, Gr. Ἐρινύες, Εὐμενίδες), dread goddesses with snakes twined in their hair, sent from Tartarus to avenge wrong and punish crime: in later accounts, three in number (Tisiphone, Megæra, Alecto). Hence gen. An avenging or tormenting infernal spirit.

56

c. 1385.  Chaucer, L. G. W., 2252, Philomela. The furies three with alle hir mortel brond. Ibid. (c. 1386), Knt.’s T., 1826. Out of the ground a furie [v.rr. fyr(e, fir(e] infernal sterte, From Pluto sent, at requeste of Saturne.

57

1574.  Mirr. Mag., Cordila, xxiv. Art thou some fury sent? My wofull corps with paynes to more tormente?

58

1596.  Spenser, F. Q., IV. i. 26. For she at first was borne of hellish brood And by infernall furies nourished.

59

1614.  Bp. Hall, A Recollection of such Treatises, 111. Thou shalt neuer want furies so long as thou hast thy selfe.

60

1667.  Milton, P. L., X. 620. Had not the folly of Man Let in these wastful Furies.

61

1709.  Steele, Tatler, No. 137, ¶ 3. Thunder, Furies, and Damnation! I’ll cut your Ears off.

62

1737.  Whiston, Josephus’ Hist., VI. iii. § 4. Be thou a fury [orig. Ἐρινύς] to these seditious varlets.

63

1838.  Arnold, Hist. Rome (1846), I. vii. 106. All prayed that the furies of her father’s blood might visit her with vengeance.

64

1840.  Macaulay, Ess., Clive (1865), II. 104/1. He [Surajah Dowlah] sat gloomily in his tent, haunted, a Greek poet would have said, by the furies of those who had cursed him with their last breath in the Black Hole.

65

  b.  Used for: One of the three ‘Fates’ or Parcæ.

66

1637.  Milton, Lycidas, 75. Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears And slits the thin-spun life.

67

  6.  transf. One who is likened to an infernal spirit or minister of vengeance; esp. a ferociously angry or malignant woman.

68

c. 1374.  Chaucer, Troylus, V. 1498. And of the holy serpent, and the welle, And of the furies, al she gan him telle.

69

a. 1611.  Beaum. & Fl., Philaster, II. iv. Come, sir, you put me to a woman’s madness, The glory of a fury.

70

1611.  Bible, 2 Macc. vii. 9. Thou like a fury takest vs out of this present life.

71

1676.  Dryden, Aurengz., II. Wks. 1883, V. 224. Remember, sir, your fury of a wife.

72

1687.  T. Brown, Saints in Uproar, Wks. 1730, I. 73. Then here’s a termagant fury, St. Ursula by name, at the head of eleven thousand red-hair’d bona roba’s, and every one of them virgins, forsooth, ready to fall upon the Theban legion.

73

1719.  De Foe, Crusoe, I. xvi. He flew upon his murderers like a fury.

74

1768.  Goldsm., Good-n. Man, I. i. There was the old deaf dowager, as usual, bidding like a fury against herself.

75

1843.  Macaulay, Ess. Mad. D’Arblay (1865), II. 307/1. The card-table of the old Fury to whom she was tethered.

76

1873–4.  Dixon, Two Queens, IV. XXI. v. 149. When the King’s confessor went to Oxford, he was stoned by female furies in the Market Place.

77

  b.  humorously, of things.

78

1856.  Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xv. 167. On my person, facing the little lobster-red fury of a stove, 94° above; on my person, away from the stove 10° below zero.

79

  7.  attrib. and Comb., as fury-form, rage; fury-haunted, -moving adjs.; fury-like adj. and adv. † Also fury fire, app. a technical term for a white heat.

80

1644.  Digby, Nat. Bodies, I. iii. 21. When the smith and the glassemender driue theire white and *fury fires (as they terme them).

81

1866.  Conington, Æneid, VIII. 282. There Catiline Hangs poised above the infernal deep With *Fury-forms behind.

82

1735.  Somerville, The Chace, III. 468.

        So the poor *Fury-haunted Wretch (his Hands
In guiltless Blood distain’d) still seems to hear
The dying Shrieks.

83

1600.  Fairfax, Tasso, XVI. lviii. My angrie soule … *furie like in snakes and fire brands drest, Shall aie torment thee.

84

a. 1711.  Ken, Hymn. Evang., Poet. Wks. 1721, I. 49.

        All dream’d that Herod Fury-like appear’d,
With the dash’d Brains and Blood of Babes besmear’d.

85

a. 1748.  Thomson, Song. Come, gentle God of soft desire, Come, and possess my happy breast; Not, fury-like, in flames and fire, In rapture, rage, and nonsense, drest.

86

1597.  Daniel, Civ. Wars, IV. xlv. Forthwith, began these *fury-mouing sounds.

87

1513.  Douglas, Æneis, XII. ii. 129. With sykkin *fury rage catchit is he.

88