† Flatuous

a. Obs. Also 7 flateous. [ad. F. flatueux, as if ad. L. *flātuōs-us, f. L. flātus a blowing: see -OUS.]

  1.  Of a windy nature; full of wind or gas; = FLATULENT 1.

1580.  G. Harvey, Three Proper Lett., 12. For want of Naturall voyding such feuerous and flatuous Spirites, as lurke within, into such a violent chill shiuering shaking Ague, as euen now you see the Earth haue.

1603.  Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 704. Like as in our bodies there breed and arise certeine flatuous tumors, named Kirnels or Glandules, formed by occasion of I wot not what bloudy humors and heats withal.

1653.  Gauden, Hierasp., 44. Their flatuous and unrefined Wines, (which have fumed so much into their own, and their auditors weak heads, that many of them every where reel and stagger, and vomit out their own shame, and wallow in their filthiness, like drunken men) are any way comparable to our old bottels, and veterane Wines; which are sound, sweet, well-refined, and full of spirits.

1710.  Death of T. Whigg, II. 45. As a Man about Midnight, the Mass of whose Blood being flatuous and foul, is born upon the Ears of Corn, or trips it away in the naked Air, but wakes with much a greater Lassitude and Listlessness after the pleasing Dream.

  2.  a. Resulting from inflation. b. Resembling wind in its action.

1658.  Sir T. Browne, The Garden of Cyrus, iii. 134. The maturative progresse of Seeds, wherein at first may be discerned a flatuous distension of the husk.

1662.  J. Chandler, Van Helmont’s Oriat., 78. It hath well pleased the Eternall, to place in the Stars, a flatuous, violent, motive force, not much unlike to the Command of his mouth.

  3.  = FLATULENT 3.

1601.  Holland, Pliny, II. 170. If a man eat them [mulberries] alone … they swell in the stomack and be very flatuous. Ibid. (1603), Plutarch’s Rom. Quest. (1892), 64. For that those who are desirous to be chaste, and to live an holy life, ought to keepe their bodies pure and slender; but so it is that pulse be flateous and windy, breeding superfluous excrements in the body, which had need of great purging and evacuation.

1676.  T. Glover, in Phil. Trans., XI. 634. They [Indians] use no Correctives to take away the Flatuous, Nauseous, and other bad Qualities of them.

  4.  = FLATULENT 4.

1600.  W. Vaughan, Directions for Health (1633), 55. The morphew, or else some flatuous windy humour.

1694.  Westmacott, Scripture Herbal, 20. The plaster seldom fails in cold flatuous pains.

1710.  T. Fuller, Pharm. Extemp., 118. It [i.e., the Electuary] hath been kept as a Family Medicine in a Gentleman’s House, and is a notable experimented thing against windy pain in the Stomach, and flatuous Stitches in the Side.

  5.  fig. = FLATULENT 5.

1630.  May, Lucan, Contn. I. 353.

1633.  A. Wilson, Jas. I., 291. Willing to be less than the least in the Times flatuous opinion: I hope to free my self from that Rigid, censorious Humour, that foams in the mouths of such whom the Venom of Passion hath corrupted.

1720.  J. Johnson, Canons Ch. Eng., Advt. to Reader, § 7. They were drawn in a very flatuous Style, and contain but very little Sense in many Lines.

  Hence † Flatuousness.

1600.  Surflet, Countrie Farme, vi. xxii. 797 Such wines in idle and delicate persons, as also all such as are of a colde temperature, or are growne into old age, do not onely not become well concocted and digested: but withall ingender a masse of many crudities, and much flatuousnes, become slowly distributed, procure many obstructions, offende the stomakce, entrailes, and matrix.

1620.  Venner, Via Recta, vii. 113. In feuers (by reason of their heat and flateousnes) they are not to be admitted.

1647.  Ward, The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America, 87. I confesse I wonder at it my self, that I should turne Poet: I can impute it to nothing, but to the flatuousnesse of our diet: they are but sudden raptures soone up, soone downe.