a. and sb. [a. Fr. abstersif, -ive, f. L. absters- ppl. stem of abstergēre: see ABSTERSE and -IVE.]
A. adj. Having the quality of purging, cleansing, scouring, or washing away impurities.
1533. Elyot, Castel of Helth (1541), 27. White betes are also abstersive, and lowseth the bealye.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Morals, 656. These almonds have an abstersive propertie to bite, to clense and scoure the flesh.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), I. 111. Has an abstersive Virtue to make clean Whatever Nature made in Man obscene.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XX. 189. And let th’ abstersive sponge the board renew.
1845. Ford, Hdbk. Spain, 124. Aqua bendita which the devil is said to hate even worse than monks did the common abstersive fluid.
B. sb. [sc. medicine or agent.) Also fig.
1563. T. Gale, Antid., I. iii. 3. Such medicines as do mundifie, and clense wounds or filthy vlcers, are called abstersiues.
1645. Milton, Tetrach. (1851), 159. The lowest lees of a canonicall infection livergrown to their sides, which perhaps will never uncling, without the strong abstersive of som heroick magistrat.
1702. Petty, in Sprat’s Hist. R. Soc., 295. Abstersives are Fuller’s earth, Soap, Linseed-oyl, and Oxgall.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, III. vi. 216. Administer to each of them … abstersives.
