a. (sb.) Also 7 torpide. [ad. L. torpid-us benumbed, f. torpē-re to be numb.]
1. Benumbed; deprived or devoid of the power of motion or feeling; in which activity, animation, or development is suspended; dormant.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, I. v. 22. If he descend not lower, to become torpide and lifelesse.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., I. iii III. i. Drinesse, which makes the nerues of the tongue torpid.
1784. Cowper, Task, III. 468. When … November dark Checks vegetation in the torpid plant Expos’d to his cold breath.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Fate, Wks. (Bohn), II. 323. Some animals became torpid in winter, others were torpid in summer.
b. Path. Sluggish in action or function.
1807. Med. Jrnl., XVII. 72. Complaints of phlegmatic and torpid constitutions.
1843. Sir C. Scudamore, Med. Visit Gräfenberg, 41. Greatly lost both flesh and strength; the digestive functions torpid.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VIII. 477. Gout and tendency to torpid liver.
2. fig. Wanting in animation or vigor; inactive; slow, sluggish; dull; stupefied; apathetic.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Torpid, slow, dull, drowzy, astonied.
a. 1676. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. ii. 63. They [connatural principles] lye more torpid, and inactive, and inevident.
1703. T. N., City & C. Purchaser, 92. The Workmen are taken to be torpid Operators.
1764. Goldsm., Trav., 171. No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array.
1778. Johnson, 9 April, in Boswell. It is a man’s own fault … if his mind grows torpid in old age.
1834. Macaulay, Ess., Pitt (1865), I. 293/2. To a small, a torpid, and an unfriendly audience.
1885. Dunckley, in Manch. Weekly Times, 7 Feb., 5/5. In the counties … the population is comparatively torpid and inert.
3. Causing torpidity; torporific. rare.
1830. Whittier, Frost Spirit, iv. The Frost Spirit comes! and the quiet lake shall feel The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the skater’s heel!
B. sb. 1. At Oxford: (pl.) The races towed in Lent term in eight-oared clinker-built open boats: originally designating the boats; later also the crews.
‘The “Torpid boats” were originally the second boats of a college, which until 1837 rowed with the “Eights.” They are understood to have started c. 1827, when Christ Church put a second boat on the river; but no record of the name has been found till 1838, when it was app. well established. In that year, the Torpids were made a class by themselves, and raced in the days between the Eight-oared Races (which were not then continuous). In 1852 they were moved to the Lent Term, and reorganized on their present basis.’ (W. E. Sherwood.)
1838. Trin. Coll. Boat Club Bk. It was determined at a meeting of Strokes that no Torpid should put on with the racing boats.
1839. Oxford Herald, 31 May. A race between the Torpids, or second crews, took place on Thursday Evening.
1839. O.U.B.C. President’s Bk. [After the Chart of] The Eights [is one of] The Torpid Races.
1853. ‘C. Bede,’ Verdant Green, II. vi. The little gentleman … did not join with the ‘Torpids’ (as the second boats of a college are called).
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xxvii. The torpids being filled with the refuse of the rowing-men—generally awkward or very young oarsmen.
18[?]. Inscr. on picture of Exeter White Boat in O.U.B.C. barge. ‘Presented … by the Honourable John Joclyn, late of Exeter College, and stroke oar of the Torpid in 1827.’
1866. Oxf. Undergraduates’ Jrnl., 20. Brasenose went head in Torpids as well as Eights.
1869. ‘Wat. Bradwood’ The O. V. H. (1870), 4. He had … done two years hard duty in the college torpid.
1910. Westm. Gaz., 24 Feb., 4/1. Oxford ‘Torpids’ … were so named about 1827, when Christ Church staggered humanity by putting a second crew on the river.
2. At Harrow: see quots.
1903. Farmer & Henley, Slang Dict., Torpid (Harrow), a boy who has not been two years in the school.
1905. H. A. Vachell, The Hill, ii. 39. Scaife expects us to be Torpids. [Note] Boys [at Harrow] who have not been more than two years in the school are eligible as ‘torpids’; out of each house a Torpid football eleven is chosen.
C. Comb. a. of the adj., as torpid-minded; b. of the sb., as Torpid eight, -race.
1884. Pall Mall G., 19 Feb., 7/2 (Farmer). Twenty-six *Torpid eights were out at Oxford in training for the races.
1909. Nation, 18 Sept., 878/2. The average [American] man, they admit, may be a little better fed, a little healthier and happier, less ignorant and *torpid-minded than in the older countries.
1858. ‘M. Splene,’ Almæ Matres, 49. I see myself now, in jersey and cap, all of one colour, pulling for very life in the *torpid-race.
Hence Torpidly adv., in a torpid manner; Torpidness, torpidity, torpor.
a. 1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. i. 3. It keeps it from rust and torpidness.
1820. C. R. Maturin, Melmoth (1892), III. xxvii. 107. The aged father and mother, retreating torpidly to their seats.
1831. Trelawny, Adv. Younger Son, xii. A death-like torpidness came over me.
1845. Day, trans. Simon’s Anim. Chem., I. 227. The torpidly circulating blood.
