[f. VEER v.2]
1. Changing course or direction; † turning round, revolving.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. ii. Columnes, 635. On th’ other side [of the astrolabe], under a veering sight, it Table veers.
1736. Yalden, Poet. Wks. (1833), 66. Nor tax me with inconstancy; we find The driving bark requires a veering wind.
1798. Loves of Triangles, in Anti-Jacobin (1852), 124. The veering helm the dexterous steersman stops.
1827. Keble, Chr. Y., 3rd Sund. after Easter. Like a bright veering cloud Grey blossoms twinkle there.
1873. R. W. Church, Influence Christ. National Character, i. 17. Fickle as the veering wind.
1896. Strand Mag., XII. 250. A ringing shout of encouragement rent the veering smoke-wreaths.
2. fig. Vacillating, variable, changeful.
1684. Roscommon, Ess. Verse, 241. But if a wild Uncertainty prevail, And turn your vearing Heart with ev’ry Gale.
1747. Collins, Odes, Passions. Of diff’ring themes the veering song was mix’d.
c. 1838. Mrs. Browning, Island, xix. Man’s veering heart and careless eyes.
1853. W. Jerdan, Autobiog., III. xvii. 262. It was thought a veering speech the Duke had just made in the House of Peers.
1875. Poste, Gaius, I. 116. After much veering legislation … Justinian enacted that a man or a woman who divorced without a cause should retire to a cloister.
Hence Veeringly adv., ‘changingly, shiftingly’ (Webster, 1847).
