feverishadj.
/ˈfiːv(ə)rɪʃ/, U.S. /ˈfiv(ə)rɪʃ/ 1.
a. Of, relating to, or arising from fever.Recorded earliest in feverish matter n. at Compounds.
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > fever > [adjective]
feverousa1393
feverisha1398
febrousc1425
febrilous1651
febrile1666
febrific1749
pyrexial1787
pyrectic1822
pyretic1850
post-febrile1874
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. vii. xliii. 391 Risinge and stondinge of here..comeþ in þe body of feuerisch matere.
1630 T. Johnson tr. A. Paré Treat. Plague xxvi. 91 Let the nurse bee fed with those things that doe mitigate the violence of the feuerish heate.
1695 R. Blackmore Prince Arthur i. 18 Her Feaverish Thirst drinks down a Sea of Blood.
1732 J. Arbuthnot Pract. Rules of Diet iii. 324 The Regimen..in the Article of Feverish Rigors.
1798 S. T. Coleridge Coll. Lett. (1956) I. 421 In about half an hour the giddiness went away, & left only a feverish Inappetence of Food.
1833 Morning Post 10 Sept. Mrs. Hannah More's last illness was accompanied by feverish delirium.
1862 Examiner 1 Nov. 692/3 The feverish pain increased. In September swelling began. The disease was malignant.
1933 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 8 July 79/2 It is an ever-recurring experience for children to recover spontaneously from feverish chills.
1995 Guardian (Nexis) 29 Aug. t11 Babies often become irritable, cry, and may develop a fever. But feverish fits are actually rare.
b. Of the nature of or involving fever; (also) resembling fever or its symptoms.
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the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > fever > [adjective] > affected with
feveryOE
feverousa1398
febricitant1599
mumpsick1599
fevered1605
febrient1651
febrile1651
feverish1680
febriculose1884
enfevered1893
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > fever > [adjective] > resembling
feverlya1500
feverable1568
feverish1680
1680 A. Wood Life & Times (1892) II. 497 This month..is an odde feaverish sickness dominant.
1744 J. Armstrong Art of preserving Health i. 9 Quartana..this fitful pest, With feverish blasts subdues the sick'ning land.
1782 T. Denman Introd. Pract. Midwifery I. iii. iii. 141 The discharge seems to be symptomatic and dependant on the feverish state of the patient.
1810 W. Scott Lady of Lake ii. 86 In feverish flood, One instant rushed the throbbing blood.
1924 Otago Witness (Dunedin, N.Z.) 9 Sept. 6 Really bad onga-onga stings provoke feverish sickness.
2001 H. Holmes Secret Life Dust iv. 54 More human casualties came from ‘dust pneumonia’, a feverish disease that was curable if it was treated quickly.
2. Having or showing the symptoms of fever. Formerly also: †ill with a fever (obsolete).
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > fever > [adjective] > having symptoms of
feverish1586
1586 S. Bredwell Detection E. Glouers Hereticall Confection i. 16 Would you were no further gone, that I might stay, with comparing you to a simple feuerish man.
1629 J. Parkinson Paradisi in Sole 484 I coniecture it may bee vsed in hot and feauerish bodies more effectually, because it doth not binde after the purging, as the East India Rubarbe doth.
1680 Bp. G. Burnet Some Passages Life Earl of Rochester 70 A Feaverish Man cannot judge of Tasts.
1740 S. Richardson Pamela I. xxxi. 236 I was very feverish and aguishly inclin'd.
1761 S. Johnson Life Ascham in R. Ascham Eng. Wks. p. xiv He was for some years hectically feverish.
1811 J. Austen Sense & Sensibility III. vi. 121 Though heavy and feverish..a good night's rest was to cure her. View more context for this quotation
1882 Cent. Mag. July 337/2 The boy was feverish and had a complication of troubles, so I gave him hot-water baths followed with a seidlitz powder.
1947 D. Thomas Let. 1 Mar. (1987) 618 I [am] back in ordinary middle health again, headachy, queasy, feverish, of a nice kind of normal crimson & bilious.
1986 J. Kellerman Blood Test xvii. 169 By the time I got home I felt really lousy—feverish, logy, and aching all over.
2007 Guardian 17 Jan. (G2 section) 6/2 He felt cold and feverish and three days later collapsed on the floor by his bed.
3. figurative. Excited, nervous, restless; agitated, frantic.
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the mind > emotion > excitement > nervous excitement > [adjective] > nervously excited or agitated
high-wrought1579
feverous1587
tremulous1611
feverish1637
overwound1640
gestient1644
overwrought1648
twittering1648
fevereda1657
tumultuous1667
wrought-up1688
flustered1743
trepidatinga1774
flurried1775
wrought1778
riled1825
tête montée1825
worked up1831
tumultuating1854
trepidant1891
tremorous1897
wroughted1905
goosy1906
hotted-up1923
steamed1923
spooky1926
antsy-pantsy1944
antsy1950
agitato1964
amped1967
wired1970
1637 J. Milton Comus 1 Men..Strive to keepe up a fraile, and feaverish being.
1670 R. Baxter Cure Church-div. 174 To turn the native heat of Religion into a feavourish outside zeal about words.
1752 D. Hume Ess. & Treat. (1777) I. 165 This feverish uncertainty..in Human conduct seems unavoidable.
1770 J. Orton Diotrephes Admonished 79 It will, before you are aware, possess you with a feverish sinful zeal for the opinions and interest of that Sect.
1855 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. III. 228 A few hours of feverish joy were followed by weeks of misery.
1884 Cent. Mag. Dec. 217/1 His very enjoyment of nature is more like the feverish excitement of an invalid who is allowed a brief breathing-space in the sunshine.
1926 J. Galsworthy Silver Spoon i. iii. 22 Five million pounds spent on the organised travel of a hundred thousand working men..would infect the working class with a feverish desire for a place in the sun.
1973 P. Arnold & C. Davis Hamlyn Bk. World Soccer 122/3 The American trainer ran on to the field to make feverish protests about a refereeing decision.
2010 N. Shukla Coconut Unlimited i. 27 Anand..was a bundle of feverish learning, absorbing everything he could find about hip-hop and top hype-men.
4.
a. Of climate, food, etc.: apt to cause fever.
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the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > fever > [adjective] > producing
feverous1603
feverish1653
febrific1710
febrifacient1803
pyrogenetic1871
pyrogenic1871
pyrogenous1874
1653 J. Howell German Diet sig. Dd2 They wold be loth to return to Spain, where they found..a feverish Air, troubled Waters, indigent peeple, nasty and ill cloath'd.
1694 Narbrough's Acct. Several Late Voy. 14 A Fish larger than a Bonetto, but..feaverish Diet.
1790 J. Bruce Trav. Source Nile II. 13 The climate was intensely hot, feverish, and unhealthy.
1839 Boston Courier 18 Feb. The hardships..will be less fatal to the health of the troops than the soft but feverish air of summer.
1885 G. S. Forbes Wild Life in Canara 34 The climate of Soopah was occasionally very feverish for Hindoos.
1936 Jrnl. Negro Hist. 21 72 The diet is constant and poor: salt meat,..few or no vegetables, since ‘greens are feverish’.
1998 Afr. News (Nexis) 21 Dec. Ojodu told this magazine that ‘any feverish meat is toxic to man.’
2018 Star-News (Wilmington, N. Carolina) (Nexis) 24 Feb. Planters like Wade Hampton were migrating..to escape the feverish heat of a Low Country summer.
b. Of a country or other area: infested with fever.
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the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > fever > [adjective] > infested by
feverish1798
1798 R. S. New Monk III. ix. 37 To morrow I go To physic a feverish land.
1803 W. Taylor in Ann. Rev. 1 315 The feverish shore of St. Domingo.
1879 G. Campbell White & Black in U.S. 253 Tracts which are exceedingly feverish in summer.
1913 Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc. 52 470 The country is covered with forest, and is so feverish and so difficult to cultivate that its only inhabitants are mahogany cutters.
1978 Boundary 2 6–7 174 He took accelerated courses at Harvard (taking time out to serve with the American Field Service..living in the feverish jungles of Burma).
2015 Citizen (Tanzania) (Nexis) 15 Feb. He was 30 years old when he crossed into Tanganyika.., a hard journey through feverish forests and treeless plains.
Compounds
feverish matter n. now historical and rare a substance within the body believed to give rise to fever.
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the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > disorders of internal organs > disorders of blood > [noun] > presence of abnormalities > abnormal substances
feverish mattera1398
haemophaein1845
carboxyhaemoglobin1891
sulphaemoglobin1896
reagin1911
paraprotein1949
rheumatoid factor1949
sickle cell haemoglobin1950
Philadelphia chromosome1961
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. vii. xliii. 391 Risinge and stondinge of here..comeþ in þe body of feuerisch matere [L. febrili materia].
1651 N. Biggs Matæotechnia Medicinæ Praxeωs 168 The feavorish matter doth not swim in the bloud.
1681 S. Pordage tr. T. Willis Med.-philos. Disc. Fermentation iii. 71 The other part of it [sc. the nourishing Juice], from the Blood being too much cocted, and depraved, is changed into a Feaverish matter.
1721 R. Blackmore Disc. Plague 93 After some Days the Feverish Matter is subdu'd and digested by the Labour of the Vital and active Parts.
2016 A. Stobart Househ. Med. 17th-Cent. Eng. i. 27 Helmontian physicians argued that bloodletting diverted the body from expelling feverish matter.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2019; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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adj.a1398