a. [f. FAT + -Y1.]
1. Resembling fat, of the nature of fat, unctuous, oleaginous, greasy.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVI. lxxiv. (1495), 577. Yf a stone is not fatty it woll all to fall by maystry of drynesse.
1563. Fulke, Meteors (1640), 64 b. Salt, the most common and necessary of all these liquors concrete, that be moist and not fatty, hath two manner of generations; one natural, and the other artificial.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 548. The bread which is made thereof is vnpleasant, fattie, slymie, heauie, like paste, blacke.
1731. Arbuthnot, Aliments, vi. 194. Spirit of Nitre will turn Oil of Olives into a sort of fatty Substance.
1851. Carpenter, Man. Phys. (ed. 2), 160. In order that it may be applied to the maintenance of the animal heat, the fatty matters must be received back into the blood.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., III. 398. The fatty ink employed.
† b. Besmeared with fat; greasy. Obs. rare–1.
1572. Huloet (ed. Higgins) s.v. Fat, The boye handled the pot with his fatty [vnctis] fistes.
† 2. Of animals, their limbs: Full of fat, plump, well-fed. Of a leaf: Full of sap; juicy. Obs.
1552. Huloet, Fatte or Fattye, adeps.
1589. Fleming, Virg. Bucol., VI. 16. A shepheard it behooues To feed his fattie sheepe.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 216. The leaues be whiter and fattier.
3. Full of fertilizing matter. Of soil: Fat, rich.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. i. 21.
| As when old father Nilus gins to swell | |
| With timely pride above the Aegyptian vale, | |
| His fattie waves doe fertile slime outwell, | |
| And overflow each plaine and lowly dale. |
1855. Singleton, Virgil, I. 113.
| For fatty lands | |
| These fit, for lighter those. |
4. Consisting of or containing fat; adipose.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, VI. v. 353. The fatty veine called Adiposa.
1804. Abernethy, Surg. Obs., 30. I have known several fatty tumours growing at the same time, in different parts of the body of the same person.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. I. 41. The fatty or adipose tissue consists of vesicles having extremely delicate, colourless walls, filled with an oily fluid, which is generally of a yellow colour.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., Fatty ligament, a synonym of the Mucous ligament of the knee-joint. Fatty membrane, the subcutaneous areolar tissue which contains the fat. A Fatty tumour is a mass of soft yellow fat, generally enclosed in a … thin fibrous capsule.
5. Marked by morbid deposition of fat, tending to the production of fat, esp. in fatty degeneration (see quot.). Fatty heart or kidney = fatty degeneration of the heart or kidney.
1866. A. Flint, Princ. Med. (1880), 55. In fatty infiltration of a cell, the protoplasm is displaced by the fat.
1877. Roberts, Handbk. Med. (ed. 3), II. 51. Fatty Degeneration is sometimes a part of a general tendency to fatty changes.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., Fatty degeneration, that condition in which a part or the whole of any tissue or organ is replaced by fat.
1886. Pall Mall G., 16 Aug., 14/1. He … dies within a few years from inertia or fatty heart.
6. Fatty oil: = fixed oil. Fatty acid; fatty acid series: see quot.
1831. J. Davies, Manual Mat. Med., 364. Catapucia Oil … a fatty oil, extracted from the seeds of the Euphorbia lathyris, Lin.
1863–72. Watts, Dict. Chem., I. 616. Fatty acids or Soap acids.
1868. Hoblyn, Dict. Terms Med. (ed. 9). Fatty Acids, a group of acids extracted from fats and fixed oils in the process of saponification. The fatty acid series is a term synonymous with the acetic series of acids.
1878. Huxley, Physiography, 119. Its fatty acids form insoluble salts with the lime.
