▪ I. adust, ppl. a.
(əˈdʌst)
[ad. L. adūst-us pa. pple. of adūr-ĕre: see adure. A favourite term of the medical writers of the middle ages; see sense 3, in which it was found in most of the mod. languages. The Fr. aduste (15th c.) may therefore be the immediate source of the Eng.]
1. Scorched, seared; burnt up, calcined; dried up with heat, parched. Also fig.
| 1550 Bale Eng. Votaries ii. 41 b, Lyke an adust conscyenced hypocrite. 1623 Rowlandson Bless. in Blasting 40 Being burnt, or made adust, by some extraordinary heat of the sunne. 1637 Nabbe Microcosm. in Dodsl. IX. 124 Provoke me no more; I am adust with rage. 1667 Milton P.L. xii. 634 With torrid heat, And vapour as the Lybian air adust. 1684 tr. Bonet's Merc. Compit. vi. 179 The Vulgar now and then cure putrid Fevers by taking of adust Wine. 1755 Hales Distillation in Phil. Trans. XLIX. 327 Its more disagreeable adust taste. 1854 De Quincey Revolt. Tartars Wks. IV. 152 The camels..these arid and adust creatures. 1857 Fraser's Mag. LVI. 69 African islands..whose desolate and adust beauty sets the imagination all on fire. |
2. Of colour: Brown, as if scorched by fire, or by the sun; sunburnt.
| 1596 Nashe Saffron Walden 110 Of an adust swarth chollericke dye. 1601 Holland Pliny (1634) I. 28 Which stone is shewed at this day..carrying a burnt and adust colour. 1678 Lond. Gaz. mcccxxv/4 One Mary, a Lecestershire woman..complection somewhat adust..Run away from, etc. c 1760 Smollett Ode to Indep. 67 Arabia's scorching sands he crossed..Conductor of her Tribes adust. 1845 Ford Handbk. Spain I. ii. 202 Here everything is adust and tawny, from man to his wife, his horse, his ox or his ass. |
3. Applied to a supposed state of the body and its humours, much spoken of in the earlier days of medicine, its alleged symptoms being dryness of the body, heat, thirst, black or burnt colour of the blood, and deficiency of serum in it, atrabilious or ‘melancholic’ complexion, etc. Obs. exc. in general sense, atrabilious, sallow, gloomy in features or temperament.
| c 1430 Lydg. Min. Poems (1840) 197 Ay ful of yre, of malys, and rancour, Drye and adust and a gret wastour. 1542 Boorde Dyetary xi. (1870) 261 Burnt breade and hard crustes,—doth ingendre color aduste and melancoly humours. 1576 Baker Gesner's Jewell of Health 63 a, Cares of the mynde..of adust flewme engendred. Ibid. 101 a, This purgeth choller adust, and melancholie. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 335 In Fevers and hot distempers from choler adust is caused a blacknesse in our tongues, teeth and excretions. 1657 Physical Dict. The blood is then said to be adust, when by reason of extraordinary heat the thinner parts are evaporated, and the thicker remain black and dreggy. 1728 Pope Dunc. ii. 33 No meagre muse-rid mope adust and thin. 1820 W. Irving Sk. Bk. II. 91 That plodding spirit with which men of adust temperament follow up any tract of study. 1880 Athenæum 27 Mar. 414 The tall, somewhat adust and worn woman standing by a table. |
▪ II. † aˈdust, v. Obs.
[f. prec.]
To burn, to scorch, to sear; to dry up with heat. Also fig.
| 1550 Bale Eng. Votaries i. 46 b, An hondred thousande conscyences dyd he..aduste with his Romyshe faythe. 1633 T. N[ewton] Lemnie's Touchst. Complex. 64 Beards of the colour of brasse: for that the haires are neither adusted by the Sunne, nor yet by any inward heat. 1667 Milton P.L. vi. 514 Sulphurous and Nitrous Foame..Concocted and adusted they reduced To blackest grain. |
▪ III. adust, adv. and pred. a., prop. phr.
(əˈdʌst)
[a- prep.1 of state + dust; after analogy of a-blaze, a-sleep.]
In a dusty condition, affected by dust. [So explained by the author quoted.]
| 1863 Geo. Eliot Romola in Cornh. Mag. VII. 297 He was tired and adust with long riding. |