a. Also 6 vaporouse, vaperous, 7 vap’rous, 9 vaprous; 7–9 vapourous. [f. L. vapōr-us or ad. L. vapōrōs-us, f. vapor VAPOUR sb. Cf. F. vaporeux, It., Sp., Pg. vaporoso.]
† 1. Of a bath: Consisting or composed of vapor. Obs. (Cf. VAPOUR-BATH.)
1527. Andrew, Brunswyke’s Distyll. Waters, P iij. Also Escume made of this herbe used in vaperous bathes dystroyeth age.
1631. Jorden, Nat. Bathes, i. (1669), 2. These kind of watry and vaporous Bathes have been in use from all antiquity.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Balneum Vaporosum, the Vapourous Bath, is when the Vessel that contains the Matter … is heated by the Vapours, or Steams that arise from the hot or boiling water.
2. Emitting or exhaling vapor; † spec. of food in the stomach.
1544. Phaër, Regim. Lyfe (1553), B ij b. The pacyente oughte … to forbeare all vaporous meates, as garlyke, onyons [etc.].
1584. Cogan, Haven Health, ccxli. (1636), 269. Such things as bee most vaporous do most dispose us to sleepe.
1600. Surflet, Countrie Farme, VI. xxii. 799. The wine is a claret,… of a thinne substance, not fuming or being vaporous.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, viii. 181. I aduise all such … to sup … on rosted meats, because they are lesse vaporous.
1655. Moufet & Bennet, Health’s Improv. (1740), 392. To settle their Meat to the Bottom of their Stomach, that it may prove less vaporous to the Head.
1710. T. Fuller, Pharm. Extemp., 20. Scorbutic Ale … restraineth the Ebullition … of the Vapourous Blood.
1731. Arbuthnot, Aliments, V. iv. (1735), 139. Aliment too vapourous or perspirable, will subject it to the Inconveniencies of too strong a Perspiration.
† b. Of the eyes: Moist with tears. Obs.–1
1583. Melbancke, Philotimus, O iv b. He … at last met by chaunce with a sorcerer, to whom deploring with vaporous eyes his burdenous taske [printed burdurus taste] [etc.].
3. Filled with, thick or dim with, vapor; foggy, misty.
1593. Shaks., Lucr., 771. O hatefull, vaporous, and foggy night,… Muster thy mists to meete the Easterne light.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 998. Considering that mists, fogs and clouds are no congealations, but onely gatherings and thickenings of a moist and vapourous aire.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, Introd. 5. There the aire is … seldome infected with vaporous blasts.
1665. Phil. Trans., I. 67. Through the Gross and Vaporous Air near the Earth.
1709. T. Robinson, Nat. Hist. Westmoreld., ii. 16. The magnetick Attraction of this Ætherial Spirit of Cold, which governs the humid and vaporous Atmosphere.
1818. Shelley, Euganean Hills, 92. The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air.
a. 1864. Hawthorne, Mother Rigby’s Pipe, i. The small cottage became all vaporous.
1869. J. Phillips, Vesuv., iv. 124. The outline of the cone was plain against the illuminated vaporous atmosphere.
fig. 1600. W. Watson, Decacordon (1602), 334. [The Jesuits’] religious pietie in shew, is but a rainebow cloude, of atheall policie in action, drawne vp in vaporous dewes of cold congealed deuotions.
a. 1652. J. Smith, Sel. Disc., IX. ii. (1821), 414. To rise above that vaporous sphere of sensual and earthly pleasures, which darken the mind.
b. Covered or obscured with vapor.
a. 1687. Petty, Pol. Arith., i. (1690), 12. Holland is a Level Country,… and by its being moist and vaporous, there is always wind stirring over it.
1818. Keats, Endym., II. 19. Wide sea,… Many old rotten-timber’d boats there be Upon thy vaporous bosom!
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xvi. 115. The lower cloud field—itself an empire of vaporous hills.
1885–94. R. Bridges, Eros & Psyche, April x. The tripod shook, and o’er the vaporous well The chanting Pythoness gave oracle.
4. Having the form, nature, or consistency of vapor. (Common in 19th cent.)
1604. E. G[rimstone], D’Acosta’s Hist. Indies, III. xxv. 196. Places in th’ earth, whose vertue is to draw vaporous matter, and to convert it into water.
1651. H. More, Enthus. Tri. (1656), 234. How can darknesse be called a Masse? etc. No it cannot. Nor a thin vaporous matter neither.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. v. § 36. 784. Its being in Hades [is] nothing but its presiding over that Idol or enlivened vaporous Body.
1794. Mathias, Purs. Lit. (1798), 136. The virus lunare, the vaporous drops that hang in any region of infection. [Cf. Shaks., Macb., III. v. 24.]
1818. Accum, Chem. Tests, 97. Formed from the vaporous muriatic acid.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sci. (1879), I. iv. 119. Caused in some way by the vapourous fumes diffused in its air.
1893. Sir R. Ball, Story of Sun, 284. The photosphere must be composed of a shell of cloudy or vaporous material.
fig. 1868. Geo. Eliot, Sp. Gipsy, 50. The westering sun That still on plains beyond streams vaporous gold.
† b. In older medical use applied to supposed emanations from internal organs or from substances within the body. Obs.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, § 119. A vaporous humour or fumosytie rising … from the stomake.
c. 1550. H. Lloyd, Treas. Health, D 7. From the whych ryse vaporouse spirites and move disordinatly about the brayne.
1620. Venner, Via Recta (1650), 49. It doth nothing lesse then offend the braine … with vaporous fumes.
1669. W. Simpson, Hydrol. Chym., 71. These vaporous steams arising from the blood.
c. fig. Of ideas, feelings, etc.: Fanciful, idle, unsubstantial, vain.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. viii. § 3. So whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations, instead of a … sober inquiry of truth, shall beget hopes and beliefs of strange and impossible shapes.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., X. 456. O foolish pride, O suppressing ambition! and vaporous curiosity!
1796. Coleridge, Sybil. Leaves, Ode Departing Year, ix. The vaporous passions that bedim God’s Image, sister of the Seraphim.
1820. Shelley, Prometh. Unb., IV. i. 321. The vaporous exultation not to be confined!
1874. Motley, John of Barneveld, II. xiv. 119. But his arguments were vaporous enough and made little impression.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., II. xvi. But such vaporous conjecture passed away as quickly as it came.
d. Of fabrics or garments: Gauzy, filmy.
1863. Miss Braddon, Eleanor’s Vict., III. xvi. 235. The most fragile and vaporous bonnets were to be seen in the Bois de Boulogne.
1881. H. James, Portrait of Lady, xlii. She … kept no less anxious an eye upon her vaporous skirts.
1896. Pall Mall G., 11 March, 4/2. Full sleeves of vaporous Indian muslin.
5. Of persons or minds: Inclined to be fanciful, vague, or frothy, in ideas or discourse.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., I. 9. Let him but read the fable of Ixion, and it will hold him from being vaporous or imaginatiue.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxviii. B—-, the mouth-piece of the debating clubs, noisy, vaporous, and democratic.
1848. Kingsley, Saint’s Trag., V. ii. Shame on my vaporous brain!
6. Of state or condition: Characteristic of vapor.
1661. Origen’s Opinions in Phœnix (1721), I. 53. We then find that they which steam’d forth in a vaporous Rarity … do at last fall down again in a watery Consistence.
1783. Phil. Trans., LXXIII. 26. The dephlogisticated marine acid, in a vapourous state, certainly acts upon it.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, I. 7. The elevated temperature it demands to be converted into the vaporous state.
1863. Tyndall, Heat, iii. § 60 (1870), 61. We have matter in the vaporous or gaseous form.
Hence Vaporously adv.; Vaporousness.
1600. Surflet, Countrie Farme, VI. xxii. 777. The most … Common annoiance that the vaporousnes of the wine doth cause, is drunkennes. Ibid., 781. By his vaporousnes it filleth the braine.
1757. T. Birch, Hist. Royal Soc., III. 416. The warmth and vaporousness of the air at the bottom of the well.
1877. Academy, 21 April, 352. The whole thing is toned down to a pale husky vaporousness of surface.
1887. Lowell, Democracy, etc., 143. The thought of a god vaguely and vaporously dispersed throughout the visible creation.
