Now rare or Obs. [f. TURGENT: see -ENCY.]
1. The condition or quality of swelling or being turgent; a swollen or turgid state.
1650. H. Brooke, Conserv. Health, 49. A Turgency of Humors.
1684. trans. Bonet’s Merc. Compit., XIX. 776. The Patients feel a certain sense of turgency in that part.
1713. Derham, Phys.-Theol., IV. ii. 108. Nature repaired the watery Humour again, the Eyes returned to their former Turgency.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos. (1806), IV. xlix. 349. This excessive mobility of parts … of the most rigid bodies … implies a great turgency of their substance with some very active fluid.
2. fig. a. An inflated or bombastic style of language.
1654. Hammond, Answ. Animadv. Ignat., iii. § 2. 54. This double objection against turgencie of style and barbarousnesse of words.
1660. H. More, Myst. Godl., I. v. 14. Their Tongues are swelled with greater tumor and turgency of speech.
b. An insurrectionary condition or movement.
1660. T. M., C. Walker’s Hist. Independ., IV. Ded. Yet is it necessary that the history of such turgencies in the State should be communicated, that posterity may hereafter see … the certain punishment of Treason.
