[ad. L. spissitūdo, f. spissus SPISS a. Cf. It. spessitudine.] Density, thickness, compactness.
c. 1440. Pallad. on Husb., XII. 479. With walkers cley is salt so doon therto, The spissitude of hit to ha fordone.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 611. For all the spissitude and thicknesse that they seeme to haue, they admit gently our sight to pierce into their bottome.
1658. A. Fox, Würtz’ Surg., II. xiv. 103. In the Joynt must not remain any spissitude or glossness when it is almost healed.
1682. H. More, Annot. Glanvill’s Lux O., 213. Spirits may have a contracted spissitude which is not Penetrable.
1720. Halley, in Phil. Trans., XXXI. 3. The great strength of their native Light, forming the resemblance of a Body, when it is nothing else but the spissitude of their Rays.
1756. P. Browne, Jamaica, 235. It may be given with success in most diseases arising from a lentor or spissitude of the juices.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), II. 17. The relative spissitude … ascribed to the elastic and muscular arterial coats.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 927. To produce a proper spissitude of stuff for making paper.
So † Spissity [ad. L. spissitās]. Obs.–0
1623. Cockeram, I. Spissitie, thicknesse. [Also in Blount, Phillips, etc.]
