pursy
1 Americanadjective
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short-winded, especially from corpulence or fatness.
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corpulent or fat.
adjective
adjective
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short-winded
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archaic fat; overweight
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pursy1
1400–50; late Middle English purcy, variant of Middle English pursif < Anglo-French porsif, variant of Old French polsif, derivative ( see -ive) of polser to pant, heave. See push
Origin of pursy2
Vocabulary lists containing pursy
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"For in the fatness of these pursy times/ Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg," says Hamlet to Gertrude.
From Time Magazine Archive
Bad manners to his impudence, the pursy little humbug!
From Mated from the Morgue A tale of the Second Empire by O'Shea, John Augustus
To us the first part of this reservation sounds somewhat like a threat of future bleeding when Scotland shall have become more pursy and plethoric.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 by Various
Never since he was a child did the pursy old gentleman run as fast as he did now.
From My Lords of Strogue, Vol. I (of III) A Chronicle of Ireland, from the Convention to the Union by Wingfield, Lewis
Coleridge in his person was rather above the common size, inclining to the corpulent, or like Lord Hamlet, ‘somewhat fat and pursy.’
From English Critical Essays Nineteenth Century by Jones, Edmund David
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
