zephyrous

zephyr +‎ -ous

• IPA^(key): /ˈzɛfəɹəs/

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zephyrous (comparative more zephyrous, superlative most zephyrous)

1. Like a zephyr; (of a wind) soft, gentle, refreshing.
   • 1753, Aaron Hill, “Augusta’s Complaint to her Thames” in The Works of the Late Aaron Hill, esq., London, 2nd edition, 1754, p. 345,

     Hither no winds, but zephyrous breaths repair,

     Soft, as the sighs of love sick virgins are!

   • 1800, Frederick Howard, Earl of Carlisle, The Stepmother, London: R.H. Evans, Act V, Scene 1, p. 75,

     The last night’s tempest was a zephyrous gale,

     To the rough storm that tears his frame to atoms:

   • 1909, Jessie Mackay, “The Garden of Art” in Land of the Morning, Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, p. ,

     And the blossom as scarlet as blood, the single, the starry, the strong,

     Is the Alpine love that is nurtured in clefts of the toiler’s life,—

     The love that is sought not in languor nor chanted in zephyrous song,

     But held in the heart of the storm when the soul has been wed to a wife.

   • 2002, J. M. Coetzee, Youth, Vintage, 2003, Chapter 14, p. 117,

     He used to be impatient of poems about budding flowers and zephyrous breezes.

2. Breezy; blown by a breeze.
   • 1915, Henry Sydnor Harrison, Angela’s Business, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Chapter 22,

     It was March now, the mild March of an early spring. There came new days, zephyrous and sweet.

   • 1966, Allen Ginsberg, “Bayonne Entering N.Y.C.” in Collected Poems, 1947-1997, Harper Collins,

     Green-hatted doormen awaken the eve

     in statuary-niched yellow lobbies—

     zephyrous canyons brightlit, gray stone Empire State

     too small to be God

     lords it over sweet Macy’s & Seafood City

     by junkie Grant Hotel—

3. (of a fabric, garment, etc.) Light, fine, soft.
   • 1895, “Feminine Affairs” in To-Day (magazine edited by Jerome K. Jerome), Volume 9, Number 111, 21 December, 1895, p. 200,

     That there will be flying machines before very long seems more than likely, and what deliciously zephyrous and diaphanous costumes will not the milliners devise for airy recreations in the near future!