plethoric

comparative more plethoric · superlative most plethoric

1. medicineSuffering from plethora; ruddy in complexion, congested or swollen with blood.First known use 14th c.

   a horse-leech, whose deep maw The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill, And who, till full, will cling for ever.

   1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts

   2 more examples

   If the predisposition to the disease has arisen from a plethoric state of the system, or from a turgescence in the vessels of the head, this is to be obviated by bleeding, both generally and topically, but more particularly the latter; an abstemious diet and proper exercise; and by a seton in the neck.

   1842, Gibbons Merle, John Reitch, The Domestic Dictionary and Housekeeper’s Manual: Comprising Everything Related to Cookery, Diet, Economy and Medicine. By Gibbons Merle. The Medical Portion of the Work by John Reitch, M.D., London: William Strange, 21, Paternoster Row, →OCLC, page 360, column 2

   Harold Atkinson, her host, was a fine handsome grey-haired man, plethoric and somewhat corpulent, with an eye for a pretty woman […].

   1941, W Somerset Maugham, Up at the Villa, Vintage, published 2004, page 81

2. Excessive, overabundant, rife; loosely, abundant, varied.First known use 17th c.

   the judges [...] were arranging their robes and coughing into their fists, the ebb and flow of their plethoric wigs like a flock of sheep on the run.

   1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 161

3. Full or excessively full.

   Behold the Mansion reared by Dædal Jack! See the Malt stored in many a plethoric sack, In the proud cirque of Juan's bivouac!

   1977, K.M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 63