a. and sb. [ad. L. lēnientem, lēniens, pr. pple. of lēnīre to soothe, f. lēnis soft, mild.] A. adj.
1. Softening, soothing, relaxing, both in a material and immaterial sense; emollient. † Const. of. Somewhat arch.
1652. French, Yorksh. Spa, viii. 74. Taking … a little Cassia, or some such lenient medicament.
1671. Milton, Samson, 659. Lenient of grief and anxious thought.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, 271. One should begin with the gentlest [Remedies] at first, as the lenient, relaxing, diluent, demulcent.
1760. W. Dodd, Hymn to Good-Nature, Poems (1767), 4. Touch with the lenient balm of thy soft love … the heart morose.
1781. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., I. (1791), 84. The rapturous God … With lenient words her virgin fears disarms.
1805. Foster, Ess., IV. viii. 251. Softened by the lenient hand of time.
1810. Crabbe, Borough, viii. Wks. 1834, III. 147. Nor these alone possess the lenient power Of soothing life in the desponding hour.
1832. Bryant, Poems, Hymn to Death, 103. When thy reason … taught Thy hand to practise best the lenient art.
2. Of persons, their actions and dispositions, also of an enactment: Indisposed to severity; gentle, mild, tolerant. Const. to, towards.
1787. Winter, Syst. Husb., 170. The lenient laws of this happy isle do not compel men to get or save.
1828. D’Israeli, Chas. I., I. vi. 153. This venerable Protestant was … disgusted at the lenient measures pursued by the Queen.
1832. Ht. Martineau, Ella of Gar., vii. 86. Archie’s family thought him much too lenient towards Mr. Callum.
1857. Buckle, Civiliz., I. iv. 201. The greatest observer and the most profound thinker is invariably the most lenient judge.
1870. Dickens, E. Drood, xiii. We have so much reason to be very lenient to each other.
1879. Froude, Cæsar, xii. 155. Cicero, who was inclined at first to be severe, took on reflection a more lenient view.
† B. sb. A soothing appliance; an emollient.
1672. Wiseman, Wounds, I. ix. 99. I … cleansed the wound, and drest him up with lenients.
1684. trans. Bonet’s Merc. Compit., III. 50. In the Stone in the Kidneys … I think it safer to use Lenients.
1767. Gooch, Treat. Wounds, I. 205. How necessary it may sometimes be found … to use lenients and anodynes.
