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''plethoric'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260313192153-00-⌔

plethoric - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

plethoric (comparative more plethoric, superlative most plethoric)

  • (medicine) Suffering from plethora; ruddy in complexion, congested or swollen with blood. [from 14th c.]
    • ✤ Coordinate term: flushed
    • ✤ a horse-leech, whose deep maw
      The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill,
      And who, till full, will cling for ever.      1
    • ✤ 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.2
    • ✤ Harold Atkinson, her host, was a fine handsome grey-haired man, plethoric and somewhat corpulent, with an eye for a pretty woman […].3
  • Excessive, overabundant, rife; loosely, abundant, varied. [from 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.4
  • 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!      5

Etymology

From Late Latin plethoricus, from Hellenistic Ancient Greek πληθωρικός (plēthōrikós), from πληθώρα (plēthṓra, “plethora”). By surface analysis, plethora +‎ -ic.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ˈplɛθəɹɪk/, /plɛˈθɒɹɪk/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts: ↩

  2. 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: ↩

  3. 1941, W Somerset Maugham, Up at the Villa, Vintage, published 2004, page 81: ↩

  4. 1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 161: ↩

  5. 1977, K.M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 63: ↩

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