1548 T. Cooper Bibliotheca Eliotæ (rev. ed.) Respiratio, a breathynge, or vapourynge.

1651 J. French Art Distillation iii. 64 That Liquor..may be rectified by the vapouring away of the flegme.

1656 R. Sanderson 20 Serm. 407 The tongue may boast great things, and talk high... We call it vapouring; and well may we so call it.

1656 Earl of Monmouth tr. T. Boccalini Polit. Touch-stone (1674) 269 Spanish Officers,..with their vapouring, distaste the good servants of so great a Queen.

1706 J. Vanbrugh Mistake iv. 293 Take thy satin pincushion..thou madest such a vapouring about yesterday.

1773 S. Johnson Let. 25 Mar. (1992) II. 24 Harry will be happier now he goes to School and reads Milton. Miss will want him for all her vapouring.

1816 Ld. Dudley Let. 22 June (1840) 146 It is really amazing, that after all their vapouring..they should not have ventured to assail him.

1841 T. Carlyle On Heroes v. 283 Consider them, with their tumid sentimental vapouring about virtue.

1879 J. McCarthy Hist. our Own Times II. 197 The errors of which Lord Derby had been guilty and the preposterous vapourings of some of his less responsible followers.

1866 ‘M. Twain’ Lett. from Hawaii (1967) 118 All the good sound sense or point there was in his vaporings could have been boiled down into half a page of foolscap.

1866 ‘M. Twain’ Lett. from Hawaii (1967) 242 The creature has got no sense, but his vaporings sound strangely plausible sometimes.

1873 W. H. Dixon Hist. Two Queens I. i. vi. 44 These stings of conscience..were not the vapourings of an idle fancy.

1647 R. Josselin Diary (1908) 45, 25 Troops came to quarter with us, somewhat bold and vapouring.

c1670 O. Heywood Autobiogr., Diaries, & Event Bks. (1881) II. 311 To make big of it, as if it did constitute us righteous before god, as the vapouring pharisee.

1691 Bragadocio 22 'Tis that Fierce, Vapouring, Coward, Bravado, I fancy.

1794 Manners France 29 Prussia's fame and Glory's fled, And you're a vapouring fool.

1834 Gentleman's Mag. 104 i. 26 The bustling, vapouring, chattering Duke of Newcastle.

1842 W. M. Thackeray in Punch 3 142/2 It is always a comfort to read of those absurd vapouring vainglorious Frenchmen obtaining a beating.

1864 C. Knight Passages Working Life I. i. 57 The burly Englishman regarded the vapouring little man with something like..contempt.

1649 J. Ellistone in tr. J. Böhme Epist. sig. A3 The frame and structure of our knowledge, which by our artificiall Reason we should build unto our selves upon that foundation; would be but a vapouring Notion.

1721 J. Strype Eccl. Memorials II. xvii. 380 They told Barnaby, in a vapouring sort, (which that Nation was then much addicted to) how little Harm England in their Wars was like to do them.

1795 Burke in H. Ellis Orig. Lett. Eng. Hist. (1827) 2nd Ser. IV. 542 We shall not..employ a person capable of writing such miserable, vapouring and empty stuff.

1806 T. S. Surr Winter in London III. ix. 240 The vapouring vanity of one struggling against opinion, and fearing to sink in human estimation.

1859 J. R. Green Oxf. Stud. (O.H.S.) 165 In this burst of vapouring Toryism open persecution had at last reached its close.

1877 S. J. Owen in Marquess Wellesley Select. Despatches Introd. p. xxxiii Buonaparte's vapouring letter to Tippoo and gasconading demeanour in Egypt.

1648 H. Hexham Groot Woorden-boeck Een domp-gat, a smoakie or a vapouring hole.

1800 S. T. Coleridge tr. F. Schiller Piccolomini ii. i. 66 Now the vap'ring wine Opens the heart, and shuts the eyes.

1821 J. Clare Village Minstrel II. 192 As vap'ring clouds by summer's suns are driven.

1854 S. T. Dobell Balder xxv. 181 Like some great vapouring cloud Topping a cumulous Heaven of mysteries.

1653 Lieut. Col. Lilb. Tryed & Cast 154 It would make a man smile, to read what hee vapouringly talks.

1767 L. Sterne Life Tristram Shandy IX. iii. 13 The Corporal..gave a slight flourish with his stick—but not vapouringly.

1892 Sat. Rev. 20 Aug. 209/2 [He] spoke rather vapouringly..about the House of Lords.