refective

plural refectives

1. That which refreshes.

   His auditors gaine so refreshed him, as to take away the sense of all paine in teaching. Their profit was his refectives and reparatives.

   1633, Daniel Dyke, Two Treaties

   2 more examples

   You should have refreshed our bowels, been as cordials, and sweet refectives, after all our wearisome labours: but have not you dealt unkindly with us?

   1809, Lewis Stuckley, A Gospel Glass, page 272

   There is a cool and pleasant refective exceedingly agreeable in social parties, large or small, at all seasons of the year, and especially so in the hot weather of our long dry summers.

   1995, Anne Cooper Funderburg, Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla: A History of American Ice Cream, page 33

2. A type of animal that eats its food twice, by reconsuming partially digested matter.

   While the rabbits mentioned in Leviticus 11 appear to chew the cud, we now know that they are not, in fact, ruminants but technically "refectives" - that is , they chew their droppings to better digest their food, not cud like a cow.

   2007, Robert J. Hutchinson, Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible

comparative more refective · superlative most refective

1. obsoleteRefreshing; restoring.

   Some six or eight hours after repeat the said sudorifick, and thereupon the Refective Cordial.

   1673, Gideon Harvey, A Discourse of the Plague, page 151

   2 more examples

   The initiation was followed by a very refective banquet , after which Delta Chi and Lambda took the train for their respective homes, voting Xi a chapter that knew how to entertain.

   1889 November, “Delta Chi–Wabash College”, in The Sigma Chi Quarterly, volume 9, number 1, page 51

   But, under the present proprietor—an intelligent, educated German—while its ostensible business was retailing of spirits and other material of a refective nature, the ulterior and sub rosa purpose of its existence was as headquarters and rallying point for the more educated, radical agitators of the day.

   1894, Flora Helm ·, Between Two Forces: A Record of a Theory and a Passion, page 86

2. obsoleteNutritional; full of vitamins.

   Raw potato starch, for instance, has a high refective power, while rice, wheat and rye starches are reported to have little or none.

   1939, The Vitamins, page 210

   2 more examples

   In fact we (Kon, 1935; Kon, Kon and Mattick, 1938) found no spectacular difference in the bacteriological picture of the caecal contents or of the faeces when rats thriving on a refective diet were compared in this respect with rats declining on a vitamin B deficient diet or on the refective diet after its refective properties had been destroyed by gelatinizing the starch .

   1945, Proceedings of the Nutrition Society- Volume 3, page 221

   Three groups of refected rats were gven, respectively, the refective diet , the cooked refective diet , and the refective diet with succinylsulphathiazole.

   1949, University of Reading. National Institute for Research in Dairying, Shinfield, Report, page 101