mortiferousadj.

1533 tr. Erasmus Enchiridion Militis Christiani xxxii. sig. Qviij Howe late they waxed wyse, howe late they beganne to hate their mortyferous and deedly pleasures.

1542 T. Becon Christmas Bankette sig. F.iij In the body of him, which without ony carnall entisementes & mortiferous delectacion was conceaued.

1654 H. Hammond Of Fund. in Notion viii. 73 While we make no distinction of sins, and deem every invincible infirmity..to be as dangerous and mortiferous as the most wilful act.

1689 R. Wild Benefice iv. 40 You shall vivificate the mortiferous Essence of my Intellectuals, and invocate into this Domical one that will not contaminate your Family; but perprecate the Deities.

1844 S. R. Maitland tr. Eligius in Dark Ages 117 Whenever you sin, do not wait in mortiferous security until your wounds putrefy.

1851 F. Palgrave Hist. Normandy & Eng. I. 198 Every erroneous doctrine..is only the repetition of an earlier error,..the venom enfeebled or more mortiferous.

1920 K. E. Kirk Some Princs. Moral Theol. xi. 249 It has..been suggested that the conception of mortal sin would be more easily grasped if it were spoken of as mortiferous—as leading directly to spiritual death.

a1538 W. Holme Fall & Euill Successe Rebellion (1572) sig. F.ij^v They spake with new tongs without humane instruction, Some reuiued the dead and maladies mortiferous.

a1600 ( W. Stewart tr. H. Boece Bk. Cron. Scotl. (1858) I. 20 The perelus poysoun, mortiferus melancolie,..In that distres hes done him for to de.

1660 H. More Explan. Grand Myst. Godliness vi. x. 240 Burnt up by this mortiferous Fever.

1699 J. Evelyn Acetaria 74 The Cicuta..whatever it is in any other Country, 'tis certainly Mortiferous in ours.

1702 C. Mather Magnalia Christi vii. vi. 43/1 Many of them..were a fair Mark for the Mortiferous Bullets.

1815 C. Lloyd Octavia v. iv. 122 I have already with my breath absorbed The dust mortiferous.

1860 R. F. Burton in Jrnl. Royal Geogr. Soc. 1859 29 40 That fevers are in these regions the natural expression of mortiferous influences generally.

1902 Fortn. Rev. June 1019 If such a ‘mortiferous’ action really exists, perhaps it could be checked chemically.

1951 Amer. Naturalist 85 139 Having never previously noted dart-wounds to be mortiferous in Helminthoglypta, [etc.].

1996 Representations Winter 99 Plague continued to be massively mortiferous: in 1720–21,..Marseilles lost about half of its population of ninety thousand.

1685 H. More Paralipomena Prophetica xlii. 364 That was not the healing of the Beast, but the mortiferously wounding the Dragon.

1856 J. Ruskin Mod. Painters IV. 340 The pure mortiferousness of this mind, capable neither of patience, fidelity, grace, or wit.