English

Verb

tumefy ‎(third-person singular simple present tumefies, present participle tumefying, simple past and past participle tumefied)

1. to cause to swell
   • De Quincey

     To swell, tumefy, stiffen, not the diction only, but the tenor of the thought.

   • 1732, George Smith, Institutiones Chirurgicæ: or, Principles of Surgery, [...] To which is Annexed, a Chirurgical Dispensatory, [...], London: Printed [by William Bowyer] for Henry Lintot, at the Cross-Keys against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet, OCLC 745299684, page 254:

     […] Lanfrank takes Notice of Tract. 3. Doct. 3. cap. 18. ſaying, "I have ſeen many who being full of Humours, have made an Iſſue under the Knee, before due Purgation had been premis'd; whence, by reaſon of the too great Defluxion of Humours, the Legs tumified, ſo that the cauterized Place corrupted, and a Cancer (or rather cacoethic Ulcer) was thereby made, with which great Difficulty was cur'd."

Derived terms

• tumefaction

Related terms

• tumescent

Translations