a. Now rare. [f. L. tenui-s thin + -OUS (cf. lugubri-ous).] Thin, attenuated.

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  1.  = TENUOUS 1.

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1495.  Trevisa’s Barth. De P. R., V. lxiv. I viij b/1. The skynne of the vysage is more tenurus [? tenuius; orig. alijs tenuior] & thynne.

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1656.  Blount, Glossogr., Tenuious, Tenuous,… slender, thin [etc.].

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1659.  Stanley, Hist. Philos., XIII. (1701), 563/1. A natural Philosopher, who conceived that all things are generated of tenuious little Bodies.

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1698.  Keill, Exam. Th. Earth (1734), 185. Not huge lumps of solid matter, but little tenuious particles or small dust.

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  2.  = TENUOUS 2.

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1634.  T. Johnson, Parey’s Chirurg., XI. (1678), 274. The Aqua vitæ … is of so tenuious a substance, that it presently vanisheth into the air.

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1696.  Whiston, Th. Earth, IV. (1722), 317. The Atinosphere would … become in a greater degree tenuious.

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1757.  Walker, in Phil. Trans., L. 130. I observed a tenuious blueish vapour rising.

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1760–72.  trans. Juan & Ulloa’s Voy. (ed. 3), II. 73. These mists are so tenuious.

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  3.  fig. = TENUOUS 3.

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1656.  Stanley, Hist. Philos., I. v. 148. The tenuious, loose, remisse phantasy.

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1885.  G. Meredith, Diana, xii. Emma went through a sphere of tenuious reflections in a flash.

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