Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb Same as imposthumate.
  • noun A collection of pus or purulent matter in any part of an animal body; an abscess.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete an abscess
  • verb obsolete to form an abscess

Etymologies

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Examples

  • When I first took this task in hand, et quod ait [60] ille, impellents genio negotium suscepi, this I aimed at; [61] vel ut lenirem animum scribendo, to ease my mind by writing; for I had gravidum cor, foetum caput, a kind of imposthume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of, and could imagine no fitter evacuation than this.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • Skippon, in the early part of the last century, reports the discharge of the bones of a fetus through an "imposthume" in the groin.

    Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine 1896

  • I knew there was no imposthume in my lungs, and I supposed the stitches were spasmodical.

    Travels through France and Italy 2004

  • The poor doctor hastened home, half dead with fear, and was put to bed in the apprehension of a new imposthume; instead of which, he found himself exceedingly recruited in his spirits, and his appetite much mended.

    Travels through France and Italy 2004

  • And the very day before his end, it being told him that the magistrate Granius deferred the payment of a public debt, in expectation of his death, he sent for him to his house, and placing his attendants about him, caused him to be strangled; but through the straining of his voice and body, the imposthume breaking, he lost a great quantity of blood.

    The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Plutarch 2003

  • On the other part, to pass a decree or sentence when the action is raw, crude, green, unripe, unprepared, as at the beginning, a danger would ensue of a no less inconveniency than that which the physicians have been wont to say befalleth to him in whom an imposthume is pierced before it be ripe, or unto any other whose body is purged of a strong predominating humour before its digestion.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • On the other part, to pass a decree or sentence when the action is raw, crude, green, unripe, unprepared, as at the beginning, a danger would ensue of a no less inconveniency than that which the physicians have been wont to say befalleth to him in whom an imposthume is pierced before it be ripe, or unto any other whose body is purged of a strong predominating humour before its digestion.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • In the eightieth year of her age she was seized with an inward burning fever, which wasted her insensibly by its intense heat; at the same time an imposthume was formed in her lungs; and a violent and most tormenting scurvy, attended with a corroding hideous stinking ulcer, ate away her jaws and mouth, and deprived her of her speech.

    The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints January, February, March Alban Butler

  • Prick therefore the imposthume at once, and, like wise surgeons, let out the offensive matter.

    The Knight of the Golden Melice A Historical Romance John Turvill Adams

  • The whole mass of his body was turned unto universal rottenness; and, though living creatures, and boiled animals, were applied with the design of drawing out the vermin by the heat, by which a vast hive was opened, a second imposthume discovered a more prodigious swarm, as if his whole body was resolved into worms.

    Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs John Foxe

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