mazy, a.
(ˈmeɪzɪ)
Forms: 6 macy, 6–7 mazie, 7 mazi, 7, 9 mazey, 7– mazy.
[f. maze n. + -y1.]
1. Resembling or of the nature of a maze; full of windings and turnings.
| 1579 Spenser Sheph. Cal. Dec. 25, I wont to raunge amydde the mazie thickette. 1598 Sylvester Du Bartas ii. i. 1. Eden 510 Not treading Sin's false mazy measures. 1615 Crooke Body of Man 465 A mazey laberynth of small veines and arteries. 1667 Milton P.L. ix. 161, I..prie In every Bush and Brake, where hap may finde The serpent sleeping, in whose mazie foulds To hide me. 1714 Pope Rape of Lock ii. 139 Some thrid the mazy ringlets of her hair. 1728 ― Dunc. i. 68 Pleas'd with the madness of the mazy dance. 1797 Coleridge Kubla Khan 25 Five miles meandering with a mazy motion..the sacred river ran. 1844 Hood Haunted Ho. xxxiii, The cobweb hung across in mazy tangle. 1888 Bryce Amer. Commw. (1890) II. lxi. 434 It is hard to keep one's head through this mazy whirl of offices, elections [etc.]. |
b. Moving in a maze-like course.
| 1725 Pope Odyss. xvii. 355 With him the youth pursu'd the goat or fawn, Or trac'd the mazy leveret o'er the lawn. |
c. as n. jocular. Short for ‘the mazy dance’.
| 1840 Dickens Old C. Shop lvi, In remembrance of her with whom I shall never again thread the windings of the mazy. |
2. spec. in Min. Having convoluted markings.
| 1811 Pinkerton Petral. I. 465 Mazy alabastrite, of a deep brown, with lighter veins. |
3. Giddy, dizzy, confused in the head. dial.
| c 1510 Songs (MS. Royal, App. 58) in Anglia XII. 268 My hed is all macy and meruelowsly dothe werke. c 1746 Collier (Tim Bobbin) View Lanc. Dial. Wks. (1862) 45 Sumheaw it made meh meazy. 1896 Daily News 5 Sept. 2/4 Deceased seemed to have accidentally fallen in [the water], probably during a ‘mazy bout’, she being subject to severe headaches. |
4. Comb.
| 1728–46 Thomson Spring 576 Oh pour The mazy-running soul of melody Into my varied verse. |