a1552 J. Leland Itinerary (1711) II. 9 3. litle Bridges of Wood, wher under wer plaschy Pittes of Water of the overflowing of Tame Ryver.

1599 T. Nashe Lenten Stuffe 9 Those slymie plashie fieldes of Gorlstone.

a1656 J. Ussher Ann. World (1658) vi. 736 The field was very plashy by reason of much rain that fell.

1727 N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict. II Sloppy,..plashy.

1770 O. Goldsmith Deserted Village 130 Yon widow'd, solitary thing, That feebly bends beside the plashy spring.

1786 W. Gilpin Lakes Cumberland (1808) I. vii. 99 The fen is a plashy inundation, formed on a flat.

1817 P. B. Shelley Laon & Cythna vi. xii. 134 The blood..Of the dead and dying..Like stifled torrents, made a plashy fen Under the feet.

1820 J. Keats Hyperion: a Fragm. ii, in Lamia & Other Poems 169 Creüs was one;..Iäpetus another; in his grasp, A serpent's plashy neck.

1857 T. Hughes Tom Brown's School Days i. iii. 52 The two..jogged along the deep-rutted plashy roads.

1862 R. Paul Let. 28 Mar. in B. Bell Mem. R. Paul (1872) xvii. 237 Such a plashy and untoward month of March.

1919 Geogr. Jrnl. 53 296 From Tonglung the road crosses the plashy marshes to the hamlet on the far side.

1927 S. Lewis Elmer Gantry xv. 220 It was an heroic spectacle, that of the Reverend Elmer Gantry..giving her a large plashy kiss.

1983 P. Lennon in Listener 16 June 36/1 It is also the plashy home of the flamingo; the pectinated heron; the marsh harrier and the bee-eater.

1822 W. Hazlitt Table-talk II. x. 229 A stream, skirted with willows and plashy sedges.

1582 R. Stanyhurst tr. Virgil First Foure Bookes Æneis iii. 50 Vp swel thee surges, in chauffe sea plasshye we tumble [L. dispersi iactamur gurgite vasto].

a1796 R. Burns Poems & Songs (1968) II. 887 Plashy sleets and beating rain.

1820 W. Irving Legend Sleepy Hollow in Sketch Bk. vi. 107 A plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod.

1859 J. G. Holland Gold Foil xxiv. 273 Repeat the music of the rain, at the feet of plashy waterfalls.

1883 Fish & Fisheries (Herbert) 334 These [sc. the smaller boats] were shallow, rudely constructed, ‘plashy’ things, from 11 feet to 15 feet keel.

1990 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 15 July v. 15/1 It [sc. Ireland] is a vast, archaic, hectic kingdom of stones and boulders and pond-studded bogs;..of plunging waterfalls and wide, charging rivers, plashy streams and limpid rills.

2001 Observer (Nexis) 7 Oct. 10 Onwards, past the plashy fountain, the postbox, the statue of Pan, the swimming pool.