† howish, a. colloq. Obs.
(ˈhaʊɪʃ)
[f. how adv. + -ish.]
Perh. short for the earlier I-don't-know-howish, how-howish: Having a vague sense of illness or indisposition; ‘all-overish’.
| 1694 Dryden Love Triumph. v. Wks. 1884 VIII. 462, I am—I know not howish. 1708 Motteux Rabelais iv. lxiii. (1737) 257 We were..off the Hinges, and I don't know howish. 1746 in Leisure Hour (1880) 119 He is a little how-howish to-day, occasioned by a merry-making. 1787 Minor 39 [She] feels, as she says, quite howish and vapourish. 1802 Beddoes Hygëia viii. 47 Cachectic, or, as some familiar writer terms it, I don't-know-howish. |