a. [f. as prec., or directly f. L. ūlīgin- + -OUS. Cf. F. uligineux (of soil or plants).]
1. Of a watery, slimy, or oozy nature.
1576. Newton, Lemnie’s Complex., II. iii. 109 b. For it is a certayne vliginous moystishnes and superfluous excrement, which ought rather to be sent out and purged.
1610. W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, I. x. 24. It reuiues the radicali and vliginous humour.
a. 1656. Ussher, Ann., VI. (1658), 240. One Proxenus … found a spring of a fatty, and uliginous, or oily liquor.
1669. Phil. Trans., IV. 1132. The Birch and Alder feed more kindly on a thin uliginous moisture.
a. 1728. Woodward, Fossils (1729), I. 118. The uliginous lacteous Matter,… in the Coral Fishings upon the Coast of Italy, was only a Collection of the Corallin Particles thus sustained in the Sea Water.
2. Of places: Soaked with water or moisture; water-logged, plashy, swampy.
1610. W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, I. x. 33. Their vliginous and soaked Mosses doe recompence their meane ayre with vnctious Turffes.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, i. 20. Contrary to this is that which is of a laxe and open substance, such as is commonly growen in low and vliginous places.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, xv. 32. The water-galls, and uliginous parts of Forests that hardly bear any grass, do many times spontaneously produce it in abundance. Ibid. (1699), Acetaria (1729), 155. Those who live in marshes and uliginous Places like the Hundreds of Essex.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., 705. Uliginous channels, those connecting the branches of rivers, by cuts through the soil.
b. Similarly of soil.
1650. Charleton, trans. Van Helmont’s Paradoxes, 15. If … they are … buried in a muddy uliginous earth; when they begin to putrifie, they then operate upon … the Patient.
1802. R. Hall, Bot., 192. Uliginous Soil,… spongy, filled with putrid water.
† 3. Of air: Damp, moist. Obs. rare.
1661. Evelyn, Fumifugium, Misc. Writ. (1805), I. 217. The impure and uliginous [air], as that which proceeds from stagnated places, is … the most vile and pestilent.
1697. R. Peirce, Bath Mem., 85. He liv’d near the Fenns, to which Uliginous Air, was ascrib’d the beginning of his Illness.
