Also 8 feculance. [a. F. féculence, ad. L. fæculentia, f. fæculentus: see FECULENT.]
1. The quality or state of being feculent; foulness. In quot. fig.
1860. The Saturday Review, IX. 7 April, 433/2. This eruption on the face of commerce is, perhaps, a sign of the fulness, as well as the feculence, of the mercantile body, but it is well that is should be thrown to the surface. The circulation is active enough to bring out the festering matter, and health may succeed the ugly sore.
2. concr. Feculent matter; dregs, lees, dross, scum. Also (now chiefly) in stronger sense, filth. lit. and fig.
a. 1648. Digby, Closet Open. (1617), 97. It is not amiss that some feculence lie thick upon the Ale.
1662. R. Mathew, Unl. Alch., § 24, 17. How forcibly Nature will throw out the feculence, after curious Nature hath drawn and elaborated the subject, and separated the Quintessence.
1708. J. Philips, Cyder, I. 19.
| Whether the Wilding’s Fibres are contriv’d | |
| To draw th’ Earth’s purest Spirit, and resist | |
| It’s feculence. |
1742. Young, Nt. Th., ii. 589. All feculence of falsehood long thrown down.
1794. Sullivan, View Nat., V. 365. They look down, not with pity, but with disdain, on the whole body of mankind, as on slaves of dulness and ignorance, who drudge in feculance, or who rove at large in the paths of folly and madness.
1802–3. trans. Pallas’ Trav. (1812), I. 86. Calcareous constituents, which may be easily recognized in the feculence or foam of the sea.
1854. Badham, Halieut., 116. Eel, carp, or tench, which, from feeding everywhere, often taste of the weeds and feculence where they dwell.
1855. Faraday, in Bence Jones, Life (1870), II. 363. Near the bridges the feculence rolled up in clouds so dense that they were visible at the surface even in water of this kind.
b. = FÆCES 2.
1753. Cheyne, Eng. Malady, II. vii. § 3. Knotted Guts, and their obstructed Valves, which hinder the free play of the Peristaltick Motion, so necessary towards the Progress of the Digestion, and the Expulsion of the Feculence.
