Obs. Also 6 sowlter, soulther, 6–7 soulter. [Perhaps for *swulter, cogn. with SWALTER, SWELTER.] = SWELTER v.
1581. [see SULTERING].
1594. Sec. Rep. Dr. Faustus, vi. D 3 b. A place … so soultring with hote burning furnaces.
1628. Clavell, Recantation, 16. Thus to be furnish’d then, is iust as tho A man should thatch his dwelling house with snow, Which melts, drops, soulters, and consumes away Euen the time of one sun-shining day.
1636. Featly, Clavis Myst., ii. 14. Envy and malice soultred within them, but brake not out into an open flame.
1694. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, III. i. 64. Horse and Asses tir’d, and soultred with the heat of the day.
1695. Blackmore, Pr. Arth., III. 719. Soultring within, it [sc. a mount] casts up Pitchy Smoke.
Hence † Sultering ppl. a., sweltering, sultry.
1581. Studley, Seneca’s Hercules, IV. 210. Euen now Appolloës sowltring car did fume about my face. Ibid., II. Chor. Soulthring fyre.
1594. Selimus, K 2. When soultring heat the earths green children spoiles.
1600. Holland, Livy, XXXIV. xlvii. 880. Tedious travaile and soultering heat.
1613. Jackson, Creed, I. xxiv. 150. All that valley was sultring hotte, and the tops of the mountaines sunke downe.
1628. F. Fletcher, World Encomp. by Sir F. Drake, 12. We felt the effects of sultring heat.
