a. [f. L. legūmin-, legūmen + -OUS.]
1. Of or pertaining to pulse; of the nature of pulse.
1656. in Blount, Glossogr.
1767. A. Young, Farmer’s Lett. to People, 45. Raising leguminous crops like field pease.
1827. Steuart, Planter’s G. (1828), 498. This practice will by no means preclude the cultivation of leguminous crops.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 591. Meat, leguminous vegetables and bread contain the same alkali.
2. Bot. Of or pertaining to the N.O. Leguminosæ, which includes peas, beans, and other plants which bear legumes or pods.
1677. Grew, Anat. Plants, IV. III. v. (1682), 187. The Cod of the Garden Bean (and so of the rest of the Leguminous kind) opens on one side.
1785. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., iii. (1794), 39. The greater part of the leguminous or pulse tribe.
1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 446. Linnæus … asserts … that ‘among all the leguminous or papilionaceous tribe there is no deleterious plant to be found.’
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 88. Myrospermum, a spurious Leguminous genus.
1854. Hooker, Himal. Jrnls., I. ii. 50. A most elegant leguminous tree.
1890. A. R. Wallace, Darwinism, 24. Climbing leguminous plants escape both floods and cattle.
b. Resembling what pertains to a leguminous plant.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 97/1. The top [of Goats Rue] is branched, upon each stands many leguminous, or pulse-like flowers.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Sainfoin, They are leguminous Flowers, White and sometimes Red.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 87. Another and a more invariable character [of the Pea tribe] is to have a leguminous fruit.
