dropsical

[ drop-si-kuhl ]

adjective

1. of, like, or affected with dropsy.

Other Words From

• dropsi·cal·ly adverb
• dropsi·cal·ness noun
• non·dropsi·cal adjective
• non·dropsi·cal·ly adverb
• un·dropsi·cal adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of dropsical¹

First recorded in 1670–80; drops(y) + -ical

Example Sentences

His skin was dead looking and hairless; dropsical too, he moved with a shambling gait like a trained bear.

From Literature

He describes "a tavern of dropsical appearance... long settled down into a state of hale infirmity. It had outlasted many a sprucer public house, indeed the whole house impended over the water but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver, who has paused so long on the brink, that he will never go in at all."

From BBC

At the end of the table, sitting like a great dropsical gray slug, was William Willoughby, the political symbol of everything her father and men like him despised.

From Literature

Belonging, or affected by, anasarca, or dropsy; dropsical.

From Project Gutenberg

In the dead-house of the Philadelphia Hospital, Formad found that, of 250 chronic alcoholists, nearly 99 per cent had fatty degeneration of the liver, 60 per cent had congestion or a dropsical state of the brain, the same proportion an inflamed or degenerated stomach, while not quite 1 per cent had normal kidneys.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• bloated
• magnified
• overblown
• swollen