a. [f. TEAR sb.1 + -Y.]
1. Full of or suffused with tears; tearful. Now colloq.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, IV. 793 (821). She gan for sorwe anon Hire tery face atwixe hire armes hyde.
a. 1541. Wyatt, How Lover perisheth in his delight. With my teary eyn, swolne, and vnstable.
1848. Lowell, Biglow Pap., Ser. I. Courtin’, xxi. All kin’ o’ smily roun’ the lips An’ teary roun’ the lashes.
1863. W. Millar, in Whistle Binkie (1890), I. 473. My e’e grew dim and tearie.
1890. Pall Mall G., 18 Dec., 2/1. As we drop down the grey Thames we are a teary and a melancholy company.
2. Of the nature of or consisting of tears. rare.
c. 1420. Lydg., Story of Thebes, III. Chaucer’s Wks. (1560), 372/2. Whan the stormes, and the teary shoure of her weping, was somwhat ouergon.
1594. Constable, Sonn., V. viii. And on the shoare of that salt tearie sea.
a. 1600. Montgomerie, Misc. Poems, xxxvii. 4. A tearie fluid does blind thir ees of myne.
1830. Fraser’s Mag., I. 503. Did the God of Hell … weep … the iron sleet of teary shower?
