a. Obs. [ad. L. spīrābilis, f. spīrāre SPIRE v.2 So It. spirabile, Sp. espirable.]
1. Connected with breathing; having the power of breathing; respiratory.
1562. Bullein, Bulwarke, Bk. Simples, 25. It also is good … for shorte windes in the spirable partes.
1576. Newton, Lemnie’s Complex. (1633), 215. It [death] is an abolishment and destruction of life and nature spirable.
1698. Fryer, Acc. E. India & P., 311. We are followed by … continued Fevers, as well as those that accompany Catarrhs, from the Intemperament of the Spirable Parts.
2. Capable of being breathed; respirable.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, 56. The spirable odor & pestilent steame ascending from it, put him out of his bias of congruity.
1610. Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, XII. xiii. (1620), 723. The visible light, the spirable ayre, the potable water.
1715. trans. Cicero’s Tusculan Disp., I. 20. That fortuitous jumbling together of light and round atoms, which Democritus, however, maintains to be warm and spirable.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Platonism, The Starry Heaven, which he [Plato] teaches is not adamantine or solid, but liquid and spirable.
