[f. as prec. + -ING2.]

1

  1.  That freezes, in senses of the vb.

2

1611.  Shaks., Cymb., III. iii. 39.

        In this our pinching Caue, shall we discourse
The freezing houres away?

3

c. 1625.  Milton, Death of a fair Infant, 15.

        So mounting up in ycie-pearled carr,
Through middle empire of the freezing aire
He wanderd long, till thee he spy’d from farr,
There ended was his quest, there ceast his care.

4

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 738.

        By Strymon’s freezing Streams he sate alone,
The Rocks were mov’d to pity with his Moan.

5

1709.  Addison, Tatler, No. 100, 26 Nov., ¶ 1. It happened to be a freezing Night, which had purified the whole Body of Air into such a bright transparent Æther, as made every Constellation visible.

6

1796.  Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), I. 10. In a freezing cold, clay contracts more than any other earth, and, in contracting, squeezes out its water, and thus parts with more of it in that circumstance than other earths do.

7

  2.  fig.; esp. of manners: Chilling.

8

1813.  H. & J. Smith, Horace in Lond., 95.

        And when old Time upon this head
  His snowy bounty shall impart,
Oh grant that he may never spread
  Its freezing influence to my heart.

9

1849.  Miss Mulock, Ogilvies, iii. (1875), 27. Seeing that, as usual, her sudden burst of enthusiasm met with but a freezing reception, she grew hot and cold, and heartily wished she could run away.

10

1850.  Tennyson, In Mem., cxxiv.

        A warmth within the breast would melt
    The freezing reason’s colder part,
    And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answer’d, ‘I have felt.’

11

1855.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., IV. 538. Her affability had conciliated many who had been repelled by his freezing looks and short answers.

12

1886.  W. Hooper, Sk. Acad. Life, 16. Nothing can be entered upon without meeting with the prim man in some form or other, endeavouring to regulate all things with freezing accuracy and precision.

13

  Hence Freezingly adv., in a freezing manner.

14

a. 1420.  Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 1806. Thoght me brenneth and freesyngly keelith.

15

1798.  W. Taylor, in Robberds, Mem. (1843) I. 226. I wrote to him very freezingly—I do not know enough of his heart as yet, to take strong interest in his head.

16

1848.  C. Brontë, J. Eyre, iv. (1873), 31. Her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine.

17