green sickness, green-sickness
(ˌgriːnˈsɪknɪs)
[See green a. 3.]
An anæmic disease which mostly affects young women about the age of puberty and gives a pale or greenish tinge to the complexion; chlorosis.
| 1583 Greene Mamillia Wks. (Grosart) II. 36 His daughter beeing at the age of twentie yeeres, would..fall into the green sicknes for want of a husband. 1584 J. Raynolds Proph. Haggai iv. (1649) 53 Like them that are troubled with the greene sicknesse. 1678 Dryden Limberham iv. i. Wks. 1883 VI. 82 Languishing maids in the green⁓sickness. 1707 Floyer Physic. Pulse-Watch 225 The Pulse in the Green-Sickness beats 90. 1746 R. James Introd. Moufet's Health's Improv. 21 The Mischief that young Girls do themselves, who are inclined to..the green Sickness, by taking great Quantities of Chalk, Lime, and other Absorbents. 1846 Mrs. Carlyle Lett. I. 385 She..had quite lately had the green sickness. |
b. transf. and fig. (often with reference to the morbid appetite which characterizes chlorosis).
| 1596 Nashe Saffron-Walden Wks. (Grosart) III. 166 It will then appeare..whose wit hath the greene sicknes. 1597 Shakes. 2 Hen. IV, iv. iii. 100 A kinde of Male Green-Sicknesse. a 1658 Cleveland Antiplatonic iv, Virtue's no more in Womankind But the Green sickness of the Mind. 1675 Brooks Gold. Key Wks. 1867 V. 142 Curiosity is that green-sickness of the soul, whereby it longs for novelties, and loathes sound and wholesome truths. 1682 Loyal Satirist in Somers Tracts (1812) VII. 68 What a desperate green-sickness is the land fallen into, thus to doat on coals and dirt, and such rubbish divinity! 1881 Stevenson Virg. Puerisque 104 There is some meaning in the old theory of wild oats; and a man who has not had his greensickness and got done with it for good, is as little to be depended upon as an unvaccinated infant. |
c. attrib. and Comb. (= greensick a.), esp. in green-sickness girl, green sickness maid, etc.
| 1592 Shakes. Rom. & Jul. iii. v. 157 Out you greene sicknesse carrion, out you baggage, You tallow face. 1598 E. Guilpin Skial. (1878) 46 Bad green-sicknes wines. 1628 Ford Lover's Mel. iii. ii, What a green-sickness-liver'd boy is this! 1651 Cleveland Poems 42 Why, my Muse, like a Green-sicknesse-Girle, Feed'st thou on coals and dirt? 1733 Cheyne Eng. Malady Introd. (1734) 2 Sunk even below the Weakness of a Green-sickness Maid. 1767 A. Campbell Lexiph. (1774) 169 Just as a green-sickness girl, when gorged with chalk and trash, nauseates the nicest dainties. |
Hence green-sicknessed a., green-sick.
| 1673 F. Kirkman Unlucky Cit. 176 Never did Green⁓sickness'd Girl long with half so much earnestness for Chalk or Oatmeal. c 1720 Bp. Rundle in Butler Life Hildesley (1799) 185 Thy [sc. Sir R. Steele] works will..cure all the green-sicknessed appetites that will seize on the gay and young, without so friendly a cordial. |