asphaltic

comparative more asphaltic · superlative most asphaltic

1. Resembling, containing, or relating to asphalt or bitumen.

   asphaltic concrete; asphaltic sediment

   3 more examples

   The aggregated Soyle Death with his Mace petrific, cold and dry, As with a Trident smote, and fix’t as firm As Delos floating once; the rest his look Bound with Gorgonian rigor not to move, And with Asphaltic slime,

   1667, John Milton, “Book X”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 293-298

   Hears the hoarse bittern, where Gomorrah stood;

   1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, Canto 4, lines 275-276, in The Botanic Garden, London: J. Johnson, p. 166, On mouldering piles amid asphaltic mud [the pilgrim]

   […] for everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,—rather weary for me, when I struck my foot against the flinty projections, because from hard, remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most miserable plight.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 2, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 8

   Synonyms: bituminous

2. obsoleteOf or relating to the Dead Sea (salt lake between Jordan and Israel).

   As Sodomes Apples, neere th’Asphalticke lake, Of specious shew, yet touch’t, to ashes turning, So are sinnes poysons sweete, yet bane to take;

   1619, Stephen Jerome, Origens Repentance, London: Roger Jackson, Section 2, p. 29

   1 more example

   […] who gather from the fragrant shrub The aromatic balsam, and extract Its milky juice along the lovely side Of winding Jordan, till immers’d it sleep Beneath the pitchy surface, which obscures Th’ Asphaltic lake.

   1737, Richard Glover, Leonidas, London: R. Dodsley, Book 3, lines 349-354, p. 93