a. Obs. [f. L. arreptīci-us, f. arreptus: see prec. and -ITIOUS.]
1. Liable to raptures, ecstatic, frantic, mad.
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon., 201. Such arreptitious ones fashion to themselves rivers, mountaines, beasts, monsters … which proceed merely from disturbance of the brain.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), I. 475. Odd arrepititious frantic extravagancies.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Arreptitious, caught or tormented by a devil.
2. Characterized by having been hastily seized or caught up; hasty, hurried.
1653. Manton, Exp. James ii. 19. Assent now is nothing so much as it was then, especially when it is trivial and arreptitious, rather than deliberate.
¶ Also referred by Blount to L. arrēpĕre, ‘to creep to,’ and defined ‘he that steals or creeps in privily’ (cf. surreptitious); whence in Bailey, etc.
