[L. colluviēs (also colluvio, -um) lit. ‘offscourings, washings, swillings,’ f. collu-ĕre to wash thoroughly, rinse.]
1. Chiefly Med. A collection or gathering of filth or foul matter; spec. foul discharge from an ulcer.
1651. Biggs, New Disp., 73. The aforesaid Colluvies of the remaining humours.
1710. T. Fuller, Pharm. Extemp., 277. They … stuff up the Lungs with a greater Colluvies of Recrements.
1811. in Hooper, Med. Dict.
1881. in Syd. Soc. Lex.
2. Conflux (of waters, etc.).
1665–6. Phil. Trans., I. 305. He pretends, that all Rivers proceed from a Colluvies or Rendevous of Rain-waters.
1819. Rees, Cycl., Colluvies, a term which … writers on the universal deluge have applied to the fluid mass into which … the strata of the antediluvian earth were dissolved.
3. fig. Medley, rabble, hotchpotch. (So in L.)
1647. Jer. Taylor, Lib. Proph., Ep. Ded. 11. A colluvies of Heresies.
1671. S. Clarke, Mirr. Saints & Sinners (ed. 4), I. 45. A colluvies of most filthy lecherous people.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. 460. Hannibal … having a mixt colluvies of all nations under him.
1730. Pope, Lett. to Gay, 11 Sept. From the midst of the Colluvies and sink of human greatness at W——r.
