viscid, a.
(ˈvɪsɪd)
[ad. late L. viscid-us, f. L. viscum birdlime (see viscous a.). Hence also OF. viscide, It. viscido.]
1. Of fluid or soft substances: Having a glutinous or gluey character; sticky, adhesive, ropy. (Cf. viscous a. 1.)
| 1635 R. Brathwait Arcad. Pr. 235, I meane by sweatings and suffumigations to extract all those viscid and oily humours. 1657 Physical Dict., Viscid phlegm, clammy tough phlegm, roping like birdlime. 1672 Grew Anat. Roots i. iii. §21, I call it a Balsame;..Yet not a Terebinth; because, nothing near so viscid or tenaceous as that is. 1742 Lond. & Country Brew. i. (ed. 4) 46 By which the spirituous Particles are set loose and free from their viscid Confinements. 1777 Forster Voy. round World I. 104 Whenever we lamed any of them, they disgorged a quantity of viscid food. 1804 Abernethy Surg. Obs. 131, I could not see the surface [of the ulcer] for a very viscid discharge, which adhered to it like mucus. 1845 Budd Dis. Liver 268 In persons who die of phthisis, the bile in the gall-bladder..is often very dark-coloured, and viscid. 1875 Darwin Insectiv. Pl. i. 13 The secretion from the glands is extremely viscid. |
2. Of surfaces: Covered with a glutinous or sticky secretion. Chiefly Bot. of leaves.
| 1760 J. Lee Introd. Bot. iii. v. (1765) 182 Viscid, Clammy; when they are smeared over with a Juice that is not fluid but tenacious, sticky. 1793 Martyn Lang. Bot. s.v. Viscidum, A Viscid or clammy leaf. 1812 New Bot. Gard. I. 42 The panicle is upright and viscid. 1823 Stark Elem. Nat. Hist. I. 421 Head..covered with large and hard plates, or a viscid skin. 1870 Hooker Stud. Flora 207 Senecio viscosus; annual, glandular-pubescent, viscid. 1874 Lubbock Wild Flowers iii. 164 Close behind the stigma is a projection which terminates in a very viscid disk. |