Wiktionary

rheumy

English

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WOTD – 11 June 2023

Etymology

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From rheum +‎ -y (suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘having the quality of’).[1][2]

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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rheumy (comparative rheumier, superlative rheumiest)

  1. Of, relating to, or made of rheum (“thin or watery discharge of mucus or serum”); watery.
    Synonyms: rheumatic, rheumic
  2. Producing rheum from the mucous membranes; (also figuratively) especially of the eyes: filled with rheum; watery.
    Synonym: rheumed
    • 1608, [Guillaume de Salluste] Du Bartas, “[Du Bartas His First VVeek, or Birth of the VVorld: […].] The Second Daie of the First VVeek.”, in Josuah Sylvester, transl., Du Bartas His Deuine Weekes and Workes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Humfrey Lownes [and are to be sold by Arthur Iohnson […]], published 1611, →OCLC, page 28:
      So, too-much Cold couers vvith hoary Fleece / The head of Age, his fleſh diminiſhes, / VVithers his face, hollovves his rheumy eyes, / And makes himſelf euen his ovvn ſelf deſpiſe; […]
    • 1717, John Dryden, “Book I”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 12:
      The Northern Breath, that freezes Floods, he binds; / VVith all the race of Cloud-diſpelling VVinds: / […] / From his divided Beard tvvo Streams he pours, / His Head and rhumy Eyes diſtill in Shovvers.
    • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “The Procession”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book IV (States-General), pages 144–145:
      But were it not curious to know how Sieyes, now in these days (for he is said to be still alive) looks out on all that Constitution masonry, through the rheumy soberness of extreme age?
    • 1929, Robert Dean Frisbie, The Book of Puka-Puka, London: Eland Books, published 2019, →ISBN, page 100:
      Her lips were clammy, but in her rheumy eyes there still burned the light of a vague desire.
    • 1996, David Foster Wallace, “Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment”, in Infinite Jest […], Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, page 57:
      […] Gately draws himself up to his full menacing height and shines his flashlight in the little homeowner’s rheumy eyes and addresses him the way menacing criminals speak in popular entertainment— […]
    • 1998, Jascha Kessler, Rapid Transit: 1948: An Unsentimental Education, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 224:
      Awoke calm in the morning, clearheaded. Lungs rheumier than usual, though.
    • 2014 January 20, Rebeccah Apling, chapter 5, in The Gutenberg Connection, Bloomington, Ind.: WestBow Press, Thomas Nelson & Zondervan, →ISBN, page 57:
      Her wizened face beneath straggling gray hair gathered in a bun, held the kindest, but rheumiest of faded blue eyes.
    • 2022, Hugh Bonneville, “Hidden on the Hard Drive”, in Playing under the Piano: From Downton to Darkest Peru, New York, N.Y.: Other Press, →ISBN, part 3 (Roll Sound), page 282:
      Eventually we'd find a date and we'd meet up, his eyes a little rheumier, his untrained eyebrows even more adventurous than last year.
  3. (literary, poetic, obsolete) Especially of the air: damp, moist.

Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ “rheumy, adj.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022.
  2. ^ “rheumy, adj.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief, Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1993, →ISBN.

Further reading

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Note 1