morphew

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
An ill-shap'd face, with morphew overspread,

View all »
Definitions (4)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

  1. A scurfy eruption. Dunglison. A morpheu or staynyng of the skynne. Elyot, Dictionary, under Alphos, ed. 1559. (Halliwell.) No man ever saw a gray haire on the head or beard of any Truth, wrinckle, or morphew on its face. N. Ward, Simple Cobler, p. 23.
  2. To cover with morphew. Whose bandlesse bonnet vails his o'ergrown chin And sullen rags bewray his morphew'd skin. Bp. Hall, Satires, IV. v. 26. Do you call this painting? No, no, but you call't careening of an old Morphewed lady, to make her disembogue again. Webster, Duchess of Malfi, ii. 1.

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

Examples (3)

  • An ill-shap'd face, with morphew overspread, —  The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3)
  • -- There is nothing valiant or solid to be hoped for from such as are always kempt and perfumed, and every day smell of the tailor; the exceedingly curious that are wholly in mending such an imperfection in the face, in taking away the morphew in the neck, or bleaching their hands at midnight, gumming and bridling their beards, or making the waist small, binding it with hoops, while the mind runs at waste; too much pickedness is not manly. —  Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems
  • In a scar after a wound the integument is only opake; but in these blotches, which are called morphew and freckles, the small vessels seem to have become inactive with some of the serum of the blood stagnating in them, from whence their colour. —  Zoonomia, Vol. II Or, the Laws of Organic Life
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 41 times.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (2)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Also morfew, morpheaw, morpheu; from French morphée, morfée = Spanish morfea = Portuguese morphea = Italian morfea, morfia, from Middle Latin morphea, also morpha, a scurfy eruption, prob. for *morphæa (cf. equivalent morpha), prob. from Greek μορφή, form, shape.
  2. from morphew, n.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

If you'd like to prod us on getting a pronunciation for this word, sign in (or sign up) and let us know.

Charts

We are still working on calculating this word's frequency.

Recently looked up

categories · Os · hankering · petard · firey

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich