Also 6 calentura, 6–7 callenture. [a. F. calenture, ad. Sp. calentura fever, f. calentar to be hot, f. L. calēnt-em hot, burning.]
1. A disease incident to sailors within the tropics, characterized by delirium in which the patient, it is said, fancies the sea to be green fields, and desires to leap into it.
The word was also used in the Spanish general sense of ‘fever,’ and sometimes in that of ‘sunstroke.’
1593. Nashe, Christ’s T. (1613), 92. Then (as the possessed with the Calentura,) thou shalt offer to leape.
1605. Lond. Prodigal, V. i. 277. Such men die mad as of a calenture.
a. 1618. Raleigh, Rem. (1644), 223. I have suffered the most violent Calenture for fifteen dayes.
a. 1622. R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 43. To avoyd the calmes, which … breed calenturas, which wee call burning fevers.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, I. 14. In this Voyage … I was continually sick, being thrown into a violent Calenture by the excessive Heat.
1721. Swift, S. Sea Proj., vii. So, by a calenture misled, The mariner with rapture sees, On the smooth ocean’s azure bed, Enamell’d fields and verdant trees.
1840. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), V. 455. Demanding to jump overboard like the seaman in a calenture.
2. fig. and transf. Fever; burning passion, ardor, zeal, heat, glow.
1596. Nashe, Saffron Walden, 44. Ere hee bee come to the … raging Calentura of his wretchednes.
a. 1631. Donne, Poems (1650), 158. Knowledge kindles Calentures in some.
1642. Jer. Taylor, Episc. (1647), 362. They were in the Calenture of primitive devotion.
a. 1711. Ken, Preparat., Poet. Wks. 1721, IV. 27. Pure Chastity excells in Gust The Calentures of baneful Lust.
1841. Hor. Smith, Moneyed Man, III. ix. 238. The mirage of a moral calenture, which conjures up unexisting objects.
Hence Calentural a. (Carlyle), Calenturist.
1823. Lamb, Elia, All Fools D. (1836), 96. You were founder, I take it, of the disinterested sect of the Calenturists.
