a. [f. L. bihul-us freely or readily drinking (f. bibĕre to drink) + -OUS.]
1. Absorbent of moisture.
1675. Evelyn, Terra (1729), 18. If the Soil be exceeding bibulous.
1790. Cowper, Odyss., I. 138. With bibulous sponges those Made clean the tables.
1827. Faraday, Chem. Manip., ii. 43. Remove the excess by bibulous paper.
2. Addicted to drinking or tippling.
1861. Thornbury, Turner, I. 116. The … irregular hours of a careless bibulous age, had undermined Girtin’s health.
3. Relating to drink.
1825. Blackw. Mag., XVII. 322. Unskilled in bibulous lore, if he knows not the value set upon the claret of Ireland.
Hence Bibulously adv.
1858. De Quincey, Goldsm., Wks. VI. 226. The arid sands that bibulously absorbed all the perennial gushings of German enthusiasm.
