a. Also lissome. [Contracted variant of LITHESOME.] Supple, limber; lithesome; lithe and agile.
a. 1800. Pegge, Suppl. to Grose (1814), 34. Lissom, limber, relaxed, North.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. 147. They are … so much more athletic, and yet so much lissomer—to use a Hampshire phrase, which deserves at least to be good English.
1825. Britton, Beauties Wiltsh., III. 375. Lithesome, or Lissome, soft, pliable; expert in action.
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1864), II. 135. Back flew the bolt of lissom lath.
1855. Tennyson, Brook, 70. Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand.
1879. Jefferies, Wild Life in S. Co., 11. The lissom bound of the hare.
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Miner’s Right (1899), 187/1. The tongues grow lissom under the influence of good fellowship and potent liquor.
fig. 1859. Helps, Friends in C., Ser. II. I. viii. 227. His [Ovid’s] lissome lines are droned over.
b. That renders supple. nonce-use.
1864. Ld. Derby, Iliad, XVIII. 389. They wash’d the corpse, With lissom oils anointing.
Hence Lissomness.
1857. Hughes, Tom Brown, II. iii. (1871), 264. He … was applauded by all for his lissomness.
1895. Saintsbury, Corrected Impressions, xv. 142. His … marvellous lissomeness … of thought.
