a. rare. [ad. L. superfluent-, -ens, pr. pple. of superfluĕre: see SUPERFLUE and -ENT.]
1. = SUPERFLUOUS, in various senses.
c. 1440. Pallad. on Husb., II. 294. In Nouember kitte of the bowes drie, Superfluent & thicke.
1676. Wiseman, Chirurg. Treat., I. xxiii. 124. I cut off as much of the skin as was superfluent, and brought the rest together.
1804. Coleridge, in Blackw. Mag. (1882), CXXXI. 124/2. The present German philosophers, who are sinking back rapidly into miscellany, and superfluent, and arbitrary.
1822. Scott, Lett. to A. Constable, 28 May. A sort of historical prayer, in which Lochleven is superfluent enough to remind God Almighty [etc.].
1882. J. Nichol, Amer. Lit., iv. 128. Though superfluent, he [Webster] never brings in bombast to plaster lack of knowledge or impotence of thought.
2. Flowing or floating above. Obs. or arch. rare.
c. 1440. Pallad. on Husb., XI. 476. In hondis clene vphent Al that wol swymme & be superfluent.
1871. R. Ellis, trans. Catullus, xvii. 10. Where the superfluent lake, the spongy putrescence, Sinks most murkily flushed.
3. Superabundant.
a. 1711. [implied in SUPERFLUENTLY].
1848. Bailey, Festus, xxiii. (ed. 3), 289. Its breast, which burns With all concentrate and superfluent woe.
1885. L. Oliphant, Sympneumata, 181. That junction of love-force may reproduce the superfluent quantities that will go forth to succour through the world.
Hence † Superfluently adv., superabundantly.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymns Evang., Poet. Wks. 1721, I. 390. Luke rapt at Jesus Love,… Himself an Holocaust to Jesus gave. Luke superfluently fir’d, Strait from all Worldly Cares retir’d.
