a. Obs. exc. arch. [ad. L. fluctuōsus full of waves f. fluctus wave: see -OUS.] † a. Watery (obs.). b. Full of, or resembling waves, lit. and fig.
1599. A. M., trans. Gabelhouer’s Bk. Physicke, 61/2. An excellent Collyrion for tenebrous and fluctuous Eyes [orig. für dunckele und flüssige Augen].
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, Wks. (Grosart), V. 212. All the fennie Lerna betwixt, that with Reede is so imbristled, being (as I haue forespoke or spoken to fore) Madona, Amphitrite, fluctuous demeans or fee simple.
1627–77. Feltham, Resolves, I. xlviii. 76. In the Air, what transitions? and how fluctuous are the salted waves?
1839. Bailey, Festus (1854), 133.
| Whose wisdom, like the sea-sustaining rocks, | |
| Hath formed the base of the world’s fluctuous lore. |
Hence Fluctuosity.
1850. L. Hunt, Autobiog., II. xvii. 84. Waves might be classed…. We ought to have waves and wavelets, billows, fluctuosities, &c., a marble sea, a sea weltering.
