vapoury, a.
(ˈveɪpərɪ)
Also 6 vaporie, 8–9 U.S. vapory; 7–8 vap'ry.
[f. vapour n. + -y.]
1. Of the nature or consistency of vapour; composed of, or caused by, vapour.
| 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. i. Furies 262 The heat, hidden in a vapoury Cloud, Striving for issue. 1598 Drayton Heroical Ep., Ros. to Hen. II (1605) M 4, The waxen taper..With his dull vapory dimnesse mocks my sight. 1608 Topsell Serpents (1658) 748 A vapoury adherency..which flyeth from the strokes of hammers upon hot burning iron. 1727–46 Thomson Summer 1724 They see the blazing wonder rise anew..: From his huge vapoury train perhaps to shake Reviving moisture. 1770 Langhorne Plutarch (1851) II. 1039/1 The vapoury steam is diffused over the surface of the body. 1805–6 Cary Dante, Inf. xxv. 84 One from the wound, the other from the mouth Breathed a thick smoke, whose vapoury columns join'd. 1824 Miss Mitford Village Ser. i. (1863) 77 The clouds have gathered into one thick low canopy, dark and vapoury as the smoke which overhangs London. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. xvi. 106 The Jungfrau..had wrapped her vapoury veil around her. 1885 Manch. Exam. 9 Sept. 5/3 Inside the body..it is suggested that there resides a kind of vapoury form which animates it. |
| transf. 1748 Thomson Cast. Indol. i. lxxii, On the couch..they sighing lie reclin'd, And court the vapoury god soft-breathing in the wind. |
| Comb. 1796 Townshend Poems 65 Who wak'st the vap'ry⁓skirted vale To songful life. |
b. fig. Unsubstantial, indefinite, vague.
| 1818 Blackw. Mag. II. 396 My love-fever'd spirit evolves A fair vapoury vision. 1848 Mill Pol. Econ. iii. vii. §3 (1876) 297 The mass of vapoury and baseless speculation with which this..has in latter times become surrounded. 1874 T. Hardy Far from Madding Crowd I. xxii. 254 His readings of her seemed now to be vapoury and indistinct. |
2. Rendered dim or obscure by the presence of vapour.
| 1818 Keats Endym. iv. 483 Leaving old Sleep within his vapoury lair. 1845 Ford Handbk. Spain i. 474 The vapory distant hills and the blue sea peep through vistas..of the pines. 1878 T. Hardy Ret. Native iii. vi, The yellow and vapoury sunset..had presaged change. |
3. = vapourish a. 2.
rare—1.
| 1771 J. Adams Diary 5 June Wks. 1850 II. 269 Thirty people have been here to-day, they say;—the halt, the lame, the vapory, hypochondriac, scrofulous, &c. all resort here. |