[f. SWELTER v. + -ING2.]
† 1. Exuding with heat. Obs. rare.
1575. Gascoigne, Dan Bartholomew, Wks. 1907, I. 112. The droppes of sweltring sweate, Which trickle downe my face.
2. Of heat, weather, a season, etc.: Oppressive or overpowering with great heat; causing or accompanied by profuse sweating or suffocation through extreme heat.
1591. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. iii. 182. The sweltring heat, and shiv’ring cold.
c. 1620. Z. Boyd, Zion’s Flowers (1855), 40. I here doe lye, Without a shed scorch’d with a swelt’ring skye.
1650. W. D., trans. Comenius’ Gale Lat. Unl., § 275. The sweltring heat of the heart is cooled by the lungs (lights) lying next to it.
1661. Hickeringill, Jamaica, 7. The sweltering and sultry Climes within the Tropicks.
1706. Baynard, in Sir J. Floyer, Hot & Cold Bath., II. 384. He was wrapt … in Flannels,… but … threw off all his Sweltering Harness.
1798. Southey, Cross Roads, vii. In such a sweltering day as this A knapsack is the devil.
1863. Dicey, Federal St., II. 49. That dull still closeness which foretels a day of sweltering heat.
1899. Somerville & Ross, Exper. Irish R. M., xii. The dances lasted a sweltering half-hour.
b. fig. of the heat of feeling. Now rare or Obs.
In quot. 1820 with reminiscence of Shakespeare’s sweltered venom: see SWELTERED 1.
1586. A. Day, Engl. Secretorie, I. (1625), 112. Shunning to be tainted with the least touch of sweltring griefe. Ibid. (1587), Daphnis & Chloe, IV. (1890), 14. With a maner of sweltring kind of disdaine.
1602. Marston, Antonio’s Rev., I. i. I burnt in inward sweltring hate.
1820. Byron, Mar. Fal., II. i. 427. The blighting venom of his sweltering heart.
3. a. Of persons: Suffering from or overpowered by oppressive heat.
1652. Benlowes, Theoph., IV. xlvi. How in Love’s torrid zone thy swelt’ring martyr stews.
1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 1199. I forced myself through the sweltering press.
1883. Harper’s Mag., Oct., 804/2. I was starved and sweltering.
b. Of localities, etc.: Excessively hot or sultry.
1845. Hirst, Com. Mammoth, etc., 93. As he strode Along the sweltering glade.
1886. Athenæum, 20 Feb., 259/2. Whether in the sweltering cities of the south or in dirt-begrimed Peking.
1888. G. Allen, in Longm. Mag., July, 306. All the parts of the camel’s body which touch the sweltering sand in his ordinary patient kneeling position are provided with callosities of thickened hide.
1890. R. Bridges, Shorter Poems, II. v. 9. Swift from the sweltering pasturage he flows.
Hence Swelteringly adv.
1845. Weekly Raleigh Register, 5 Sept., 3/1. After perhaps one of the most swelteringly hot and dry Summers we have ever known, the ‘Seasons’ have again rolled round the first month of Autumnal beauty and ‘harvest-home’ glory.
c. 1890. A. Murdoch, Yoshiwara Episode, 13. It was August, and consequently swelteringly hot.
