a. Also 7 fervide. [ad. L. fervid-us burning, vehement, f. fervēre to glow.]
1. Burning, glowing, hot. Now poet. or rhetorical.
1599. A. M., trans. Gabelhouer’s Bk. Physicke, 6/2. Let it stand a day or two in som fervide place, oftentimes stirringe of the same.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 300.
| The mounted Sun | |
| Shot down direct his fervid Raies, to warme | |
| Earths inmost womb. |
1718. Pope, Iliad, XVI. 938.
| Now flaming from the zenith, Sol had driven | |
| His fervid orb through half the vault of heaven. |
1794. Sullivan, View Nat., II. 55. Insects, and reptiles, also burst from their nests, and annoy us with noise and with bites. The louder the thunder, and the more fervid the lightning, the more animated they appear.
1833. N. Arnott, Physics (ed. 5), II. 62. His attention was soon recalled to the fervid land of the sun.
1851. Thackeray, Eng. Hum., ii. (1858), 59. To hang on in the dust behind the fervid wheels of the parliamentary chariot.
transf. 1865. Swinburne, Poems & Ball., Hendecasyllables, 5.
| Flame as fierce as the fervid eyes of lions | |
| Half divided the eyelids of the sunset. |
1871. M. Collins, Mrq. & Merch. II. iii. 61. The Christmas night had been fervid and fierce. There had been a dinner of the heaviest and most magnificent description, with wine beyond all ordinary habitude.
2. fig. Glowing, intensely impassioned.
1656–81. Blount, Glossogr., Fervid, fierce, vehement.
a. 1717. Parnell, The Happy Man, 16.
| Ah me! the sweet infus’d desires, | |
| The fervid wishes, holy fires, | |
| Which thus a melted heart refine, | |
| Such are his, and such be mine. |
1779–81. Johnson, L. P., Addison, Wks. 1816, X. 122. He is warm rather than fervid, and shews more dexterity than strength.
1828. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), I. 211. Of Burns’s fervid affection, his generous, all-embracing Love, we have spoken already, as of the grand distinction of his nature, seen equally in word and deed, in his Life and in his Writings.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xxvii. It is your poetical temperament, my dear—your ethereal soul—your fervid imagination, which throws you into a glow of genius and excitement.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 335. To the fervid loyalty with which Charles had been welcomed back to Dover succeeded discontent and disaffection.
1872. Blackie, Lays Highl., 155.
| Without the call | |
| Of fervid preacher. |
Hence Fervidity [+ -ITY]: a. Intense heat. b. Passion, zeal (J.). Fervidly adv., in a fervid manner; earnestly. Fervidness, the state or quality of being fervid.
1692. Bentley, Boyle Lect., Serm. vi. 188. In the account of the meek Lamb of God it was a kind of Injury done to him by the fervidness of St. Peter.
1717. Bailey, vol. II., Fervidity.
1775. Ash, Fervidity, heat.
1847. Craig, Fervidly, very hotly, with glowing warmth.
1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., i. A young lady of some birth and fortune, who knelt suddenly down on a brick floor by the side of a sick labourer and prayed fervidly as if she thought herself living in the time of the Apostles.
