a. Also 5 boriall, 6 boryall, 7 boreall. [ad. L. Boreālis; see BOREAS, and -AL.]
1. Of or pertaining to the north; situated on the northern side; of a northern character. Boreal signs: the six signs of the Zodiac from Aries to Virgo. Boreal dawn (rare): the Aurora Borealis. Now chiefly in Zool. and Bot.
1470. Harding, Chron., ccxl. note. Foure flodes … Ebbynge & flowynge in the see boriall.
1536. Exhort. Northe, in Furnivall’s Ballads fr. MSS., I. 305. The boryalle Region.
1695. Westmacott, Script. Herb., 42. Fitz Stephens describing London, tells us of a large Forrest of [Chestnut] Trees on the Boreal part of it.
1805. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., III. 211. His pretended reforms, like the boreal dawn, glittered at a distance.
1845. Poe, Ulalume. The boreal pole.
1846. McCulloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 99. [Plants] all eminently alpine or boreal.
1874. Coues, Birds of N.-W., 316. The Acadian Owl is not so boreal a bird as its congener.
2. Of or pertaining to the north wind.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Boreal, pertaining to the North-Wind.
1672. R. Wild, Declar. Lib. Consc., 7. Such a boreal month as this March.
1720. Pope, Iliad, XXIII. 241. To gentle Zephyr and the Boreal blast.
1830. in Blackw. Mag., XXVIII. 941. The boreal storms are o’er.
3. Belonging to the ‘boreal province’ of the Mollusca.
1854. Woodward, Mollusca, III. (1856), 358. The boreal shells of America are described by Dr. Gould.
1873. Geikie, Gt. Ice Age, xv. 196. Perfect specimens of boreal and arctic shells.
