a. Also 6 -yde. [ad. L. tumid-us, f. tumē-re to swell: see -ID1.]
1. Swollen; characterized by swelling. a. Morbidly affected with swelling, as a part of the body.
1541. R. Copland, Galyen’s Terap., 2 F j. Varyce (that is to say a tumyde vayne).
1650. Bulwer, Anthropomet., 178. Making … the Belly tumid.
1784. Johnson, Lett. to Mrs. Thrale, 12 Jan. My thighs grow very tumid.
1878. T. Bryant, Pract. Surg., I. 32. Ulcers … distinguished by their livid colour and irregular tumid border.
b. Of a swollen or protuberant form; swelling, bulging; in quot. 1659, swollen or puffed out with the wind. In later use chiefly Nat. Hist.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., XI. (1626), 221. Who, with the Father of the tumid Maine, Indues a mortall shape.
1659. T. Pecke, Parnassi Puerp., 132. Tumid Sail-cloaths gratifi’d our Sight.
1819. Stephens, in Shaw, Gen. Zool., XI. I. 1. The upper mandible with a soft and tumid membrane at its base.
1828. J. E. Smith, Eng. Flora, II. 97. Styles short and close in the flower;… their bases tumid.
2. fig. esp. of language or literary style: ‘Swelling,’ inflated, turgid, bombastic.
1648. Boyle, Seraph. Love, xx. (1700), 126. Such expressions may seem somewhat tumid and aspiring.
1760. Jortin, Erasmus, II. 200. A puerile performance, in a poetical, tumid, and idolatrous style.
1809. Byron, Bards & Rev., xiv. Turgid ode and tumid stanza.
1877. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, v. 272. His Greek style is at the same time tame and tumid.
b. ‘Big,’ pregnant, teeming. rare.
1840. De Quincey, Style, III. Wks. 1860, XI. 252. It is tumid with revolutionary life.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, I. Pref. 6. Greek … is a language … tumid with luxuriant growth and overgrowth.
Hence Tumidly adv., in a tumid manner (lit. and fig.); Tumidness, tumidity.
1688. Boyle, Final Causes Nat. Things, Vitiated Sight, 259. Her eyes did not always retain the same measure of tumidness.
1822. J. Parkinson, Outl. Oryctol., 164. A multilocular, tumidly discoidal and elliptically spiral shell.
1864. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., XVI. v. (1872), VI. 184. Remarks … of dim tumidly insignificant character.
