a. Also 6–8 umbragious, 7, 9 ombrageous (7 -ious). [ad. F. ombrageux (OF. also -eus), f. ombrage (see UMBRAGE sb.); or directly f. UMBRAGE sb. + -OUS.]
1. a. Forming or affording shade; shady.
1587. A. Day, Daphnis & Chloe (1890), 69. First ranne hee to the foot of a hie and umbragious rocke.
1614. Gorges, Lucan, II. 63. Where these vmbragious mountaines stand.
1675. Evelyn, Terra (1676), 93. Lastly, by shade Ground is render’d barren, and by the dripping of umbragious trees.
1725. Pope, Odyss., VI. 149. Where the grove with leaves umbrageous bends, With forceful strength a branch the Heroe rends.
1790. Phil. Trans., LXXX. 351. Their tops are so very thick and umbrageous as to prevent even a very heavy rain from reaching the ground underneath.
1826. Scott, Woodst., x. The towers of Woodstock arose high above the umbrageous shroud which the forest spread around the … mansion.
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), I. 99. A handsome umbrageous tree, with a smooth bark, and shining leaves.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, x. 310. Oaks with their umbrageous foliage … belong to the forests of the North.
b. Abounding in shade; shaded by trees or the like; overshadowed.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xxii. 1619. Those past times … When as that woody kind, in our umbrageous wild,… In this their world of waste, the sovereign empire sway’d.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., III. 81. A secure place of repose in a vmbragious Caue.
1666. Harvey, Morb. Angl., 215. Walk daily in a pleasant, airy, and umbragious Garden.
1742. Gray, Propertius, III. 3. Fast by th’ umbrageous vale lull’d to repose, Where Aganippe warbles as it flows.
1774. R. Cumberland, in Westm. Mag., II. 148. No cooling Grottoes, no umbrageous Groves, To win the Graces, and allure the Loves.
1811. Shelley, St. Irvyne, xi. The umbrageous loveliness of the surrounding country.
1846. Hawthorne, Mosses, I. i. 13. It makes us shiver to think of these deep umbrageous recesses.
1897. Farrar, Darkn. & Dawn, lvi. Everyone should wander at will about the green copses, and the umbrageous retreats.
c. Caused by thick foliage.
1830. J. G. Strutt, Sylva Brit., 54. The religious Mahometans chose to pray under old trees,… piously believing that the holy men of former times had prayed and meditated under their umbrageous shade.
a. 1854. J. Wilson, in Casquet of Lit. (1896), V. 178/2. Dew and dreams dropping through their umbrageous twilight at eve or morn.
2. Of persons: Suspicious; jealous; apt or disposed to take offence.
α. 1601. R. Johnson, Kingd. & Commw., 169. The inhabitants,… partly by their forme of gouernment, whereby they are made vile, base and vmbragious, haue little valour or manhood left them.
1652. J. Wright, trans. Camus’ Nat. Paradox, III. Argt. 48. The King made jealous of the Queen, shee no less umbragious of him, and both for Iphigenes.
1758. Warburton, Div. Legat., Pref. Of which, doubtless, the Romans were very jealous,… though not so extravagantly umbragious as our Critic’s hypothesis obliges him to suppose.
1768. Hurd, in Warburton, Lett. (1809), 425. Both susceptible of high passions in love and friendship; but, of the two, the Italian more constant, and less umbrageous.
1846. Grote, Greece, II. vi. II. 503. The rural costume … which the Helot commonly wore, and the change of which exposed him to suspicion, if not to punishment, from his umbrageous masters.
1874. Symonds, Sk. Italy & Greece (1898), I. vi. 107. The people are idle, haughty, umbrageous, fiery, quarrelsome [etc.].
β. 1630. Donne, Serm., lv. (1640), 557. At the beginning some men were a little ombrageous, and startling at the name of the Fathers.
1803. [? Sir L. Hanson], Hist. Acc. Orders Knighth., II. 306. Most punctilious with respect to forms and Ceremonies: and excessively ombrageous, with regard to the Non-observance of trivial points.
b. Of disposition or nature.
c. 1639. Wotton, Lett. Sir. E. Bacon, in Reliq. (1672), 430. But lest you should mistake, as some others have been apt to do here, in the present constitution of the court (which is very ombragious).
1652. J. Wright, trans. Camus’ Nat. Paradox, XII. 321. Let your rigour execute mee … all that your umbragious or Cholerick humour can suggest.
1667. G. Digby, Elvira, I. i. What power meer appearances have had … to destroy, With an umbragious nature, all that Love Was ever able … To found and to establish.
† 3. Obscure; dubious. Obs.
1635. J. Reynolds, God’s Revenge, III. xiii. 256. That there was none other present but himselfe when his Master De Merson was murthered, it is umbragious, and leaves a … sting of suspition in their heads.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Hist. Jas. II., Wks. (1711), 24. By umbragious Ways he nourished Discontentments in all parts of the Country.
1651. H. L’Estrange, Answ. Marq. Worcester, 61. We blesse God for the light they had, though umbrageous and clouded, yet was it such as discovered the nakednesse and shame of the Church of Rome.
Hence Umbrageously adv.; Umbrageousness.
1639. Drumm. of Hawth., Mag. Mirror, Wks. (1711), 175. He had Intention to bring Novations into our Religion; tending *umbrageously, and under a Mask, to the Introduction of Popery.
1834. Ainsworth, Rookwood, I. i. One tree … outflings … its arms umbrageously.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, I. iv. § 3. 69. The exceeding *umbragiousnesse of this tree he compareth to the darke and shadowed life of man.
1755. Johnson, Shadiness,… umbrageousness.
1833. Examiner, 106/2. Trees … spreading sideways with Asiatic grace and umbrageousness.
1835. Moir, in Blackw. Mag., XXXVIII. 491.
| A requiem to the glory of the woods— | |
| The bright umbrageousness, which, like a dream, | |
| Hath perish’d and for ever pass’d away. |
1837. Blackw. Mag., XLI. 512. A face incapable of a blush, partly from the umbrageousness of the whiskers.
1871. Daily News, 28 July. The familiar umbrageousness of Croydon.
188–9[?]. Matthew Johnson, Poet (1909), 15.
| Above thy busy froth and tawny ridge | |
| And ferny boulders’ cool umbrageousness | |
| Thy waters wander past in shallowness | |
| A grey stone cell, a round tow’r, and a bridge. |
