mulcify

present singular third person mulcifies · participle present mulcifying · participle past mulcified · past mulcified

1. Synonym of emulsify.

   The only way to use such a sticky varnish was to mulcify it with white of egg.

   1913, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, page 12

   2 more examples

   The powder in water mulcifies with a little yolk of egg with the addition finally of a little dextrin ( 20 grms. per litre ), salt ( about 7 grms. per litre ), and a little strong wine ( Malaga, Roussillon, etc., 3 tablespoonfuls ).

   1906, Armand Gautier, Diet and dietetics, page 443

   Scrub the skin briskly with Helen Randle health soap, dry with a turkish towel, massage the skin with mulcified peanut oil.

   1934, Helen Gertrude Randle, The Proper Diet for Every Case of Impaired Health, page 210

   Synonyms: emulsify

2. obsoleteTo soften.

   Tillage aerates the soil, exposes it to the sweetening influence of the atmosphere, and encourages root growth; surface tillage mulcifies the soil and prevents undue evaporation of moisture.

   1902, Natal Agriculture Journal - Volume 5, page 646

   2 more examples

   I should be quite prepared to see it crowded with the portly forms of a number of London draymen, porters, footmen, etc., with a proportional number of cooks, kitchenmaids, and other specimens of the "area belle", all as plump, blooming, and buxom as "forty ounces of solids,” mulcified with twenty ounces of milk, and the whole washed down with “either half a pint of port, sherry, or Marsala; or one pint of Burgundy, claret, or other similar wine;

   August 31, 1867, “The 'Forty Ounces of Solids' Theory and the Pancreatic Emulsion”, in The Medical Times and Gazette, page 239

   […] those old stories of defeated emperors and disgruntled philosophers retiring for a comfortable suicide to their warm bathrooms, are as frequent as those of tough old gentlemen and warriors, as well as the Lesbias and Lydias of the poets, resorting to the mulcifying solutions of their epidermis in asses' milk.

   1926, The Commonweal - Volume 4, page 139

3. obsoleteTo soothe or mitigate.

   'Tis yours to mulcify the dolorific heart,

   1878, ULULA: THE MANCHESTER GRAMMAR SCHOOL MAGAZINE

   2 more examples

   A man or woman having a Mole on the left side toward the upper part of the corner of the Eye, as in the first figure and number (41) they have another the left Loin or Thigh; this signified a great and perillous sicknesses to a man; if it be honey colour or red, these sorrows are somewhat mulcified, but if black, a short life through a gievous Fall or choaking in the Waters: but if as a Lentil or wart, if promiseth a good end.

   1671, Richard Saunders, Saunders Physiognomie, and Chiromancie, Metoposcopie, page 321

   At length the soothing speeches of the astounded courtiers mulcified the illustrious personages wrath ; he resumed his seat on the conviction that no insult had been intended.

   1835 July 25, “Interpreter”, in Figaro in London, volume 4, number 190, page 124