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
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He began to get pursy and red-faced, and was clicking it off with his fifth set of young fellows.
From In Our Town by Frederic Rodrigo Gruger
On the other side of her was an individual in a civic chain, whose fat, pursy, apoplectic appearance, and nose of the colour of an Orleans plum, thoroughly realised my mental picture of the Bailie.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 by Various
I can remember your letters in their fat pursy envelopes.
From The Passionate Elopement by Compton MacKenzie
There was a pursy sac-like body, ending in a head with staring, lidless eyes and a great black beak that looked strong enough to shear sheet steel.
From Devil Crystals of Arret by Hal K. Wells
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.