a. [f. BALM sb. + -Y1]
1. Yielding or producing balm.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 24. What drops the Myrrhe, and what the balmie Reed.
1742. Collins, Eclog., i. 49. The balmy shrub for you shall love our shore.
† 2. Of the consistency of balm; resinous. Obs.
1782. Monro, Anat., 14. The marrow is … oily and balmy in middle age.
3. Delicately and deliciously fragrant.
c. 1500. Dunbar, Gold. Targe, 97. Ewiry blome … Opnyt & spred thair balmy leves.
1604. Shaks., Oth., V. ii. 16. Ile smell thee on the Tree. Oh Balmy breath.
1794. Burns, Wks., IV. 313. Like a baumy kiss.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 85. Under the shade of those balmy firs.
4. fig. Deliciously soft and soothing.
1604. Shaks., Oth., II. ii. 259. To haue their Balmy slumbers wak’d with strife.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., I. 1. Tir’d Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy Sleep!
1857. Heavysege, Saul (1869), 161. The balmy sense of fault forgiven.
5. Of wind, air, weather, etc. (combining senses 3 and 4): Deliciously mild, fragrant and soothing.
1704. Pope, Winter, 48. The balmy zephyrs.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., xvii. And balmy drops … Slide from the bosom of the stars.
1867. Miss Braddon, R. Godwin, II. v. 73. When the August weather was brightest and balmiest.
6. Of healing virtue, medicinally soothing.
1746. Collins, Ode to Pity, i. With balmy hands his wounds to bind.
1796. Burke, Regic. Peace, Wks. 1842, II. 318. To assuage his bruised dignity with half a yard square of balmy diplomatick diachylon.
1826. E. Irving, Babylon, II. 391. The cure for a disease, is to send … balmy medicines.
