chymic

comparative more chymic · superlative most chymic

1. obsoletechemic

   So the all-seeing sun each day Distills the world with chymic ray.

   1681, Andrew Marvell, edited by G. A. Aitken, Ed. London: Lawrence & Bullen, The Poems of Andrew Marvell, pages 36–38

   3 more examples

   Less shone the tresses Egypt's princess wore, Which sweet Callimachus so sung before; Here courtly trifles set the world at odds, Belles war with beaux, and whims descend for gods, The new machines in names of ridicule, Mock the grave frenzy of the chymic fool.

   1738, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, Tobias Smollett, Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett

   —’Tis thou, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, addressing myself to Liberty, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change.—No tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron:—with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled!

   1768, Mr. Yorick [pseudonym; Laurence Sterne], A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, volume I, London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […], →OCLC

   Till lastly, when by chymic jolt And sheer corrosion of the thatch, What time the withering woodlands moult My love shall moult to match, And all those curls I loved to beg For keepsakes on the earth be strewed, Leaving her cranium like an egg Incomparably nude.

   1914, Various, Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 11, 1914

plural chymics

1. obsoletechemic

   The subtle chymic can divest / And strip the creature naked, till he find / The callow principles within their nest

   1633, George Herbert, Vanity