[ad. L. circulātōri-us: see above. Cf. F. circulatoire, 16th c. in Littré.] Of the nature of, or pertaining to, circulation.
1. Pertaining to the circulation of the blood, or of any analogous fluid or current.
1605. Timme, Quersit., I. xv. 72. The veyne called vena caua … is … the vessel circulatorie.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 59. It is carried up and down in circulatory Vessels.
1707. Floyer, Physic. Pulse-Watch, 14. The Blood … continually moves through the circulatory Organs.
1862. A. Maclaren, in Macm. Mag., V. 517. Their nervous and circulatory systems are readily irritated.
1880. Haughton, Phys. Geog., iii. 131. The circulatory current revolving to the left.
† 2. Old Chem. For the purpose of chemical ‘circulation’: see CIRCULATORY sb.
1675. Evelyn, Terra (1776), 66. Old Glauber … by the assistance of certain Circulatory vessels to prepare the oily succus and pinguid juice.
c. 1720. W. Gibson, Farrier’s Dispens., III. iii. (1734), 132. Unless they be made in a circulatory vessel.
† 3. Of or pertaining to a mountebank, or quack; juggling. [= L. circulātōrius.] Obs.
(Warton prob. meant ‘strolling, itinerant.’)
1652. Gaule, Magastrom., 275. Detecting the circulatory and præstigious fallacy. Ibid., 348. A præstigious Jugler, being taken at Paris, escaped prison by his circulatory tricks.
1774. T. Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry (1840), III. xxiii. 77. Borde’s circulatory peregrinations in the quality of a quack-doctor.
† 4. Circulatory letter: = Circular letter. Obs.
1668. Lond. Gaz., No. 229/3. A Circulatory Letter sent to all the Princes and Potentates.
1696. Phillips, Circulatory Letters, Letters sent into all parts of a Kingdom, by General Commissioners, upon particular occasions.
1735. Johnson, trans. Lobo’s Abyssinia, 242. Circulatory Letters from him to the Christian Princes.
¶ In the following circulatory varies with circulary (the reading of edd. 1611 and 1617).
1597. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. § 53 (also edd. 1632, 1845). Crosse and circulatorie speeches, wherein there are attributed to God such things as belong to manhood, and to man such as properly concern the deitie of Christ Jesus.
