c1000 West Saxon Gospels: Luke (Corpus Cambr.) viii. 23 Ða com windi yst.

1390 J. Gower Confessio Amantis III. 313 The wyndy Storm began to skarse.

1590 E. Spenser Faerie Queene ii. viii. sig. V^v As when a windy tempest bloweth hye.

1602 W. Basse Three Pastoral Elegies ii. sig. C March departed with his windy rage.

c1602 C. Marlowe tr. Ovid Elegies ii. xvi. sig. D3 If sterne Neptunes windie powre preuaile.

1617 J. Taylor Three Weekes Obseruations Ep. Ded. All the watery, windy, earthly, and drinking Deities.

1781 W. Cowper Retirem. 432 While morning kindles with a windy red.

1873 W. Black Princess of Thule vi. 89 The sea that lay beyond..was of a windy green.

1841 W. M. Thackeray Mem. Gormandising in Wks. (1900) XIII. 576 Music, whether windy or wiry.

1872 H. W. Longfellow Cobbler of Hagenau in Three Bks. Song i. 32 Two angels carved in wood, That by the windy organ stood.

OE Beowulf 1358 Windige næssas.

c1000 Ælfric Homilies II. 322 Heora wyrtruma bið swa-swa windige ysla.

1483 Cath. Angl. 419/1 Wyndy, ventosus, ventuosus.

1552 R. Huloet Abcedarium Anglico Latinum Wyndy houses, or places.

1555 R. Eden tr. Peter Martyr of Angleria Decades of Newe Worlde f. 247^v A coulde and wyndy clime.

1573 in J. Cranstoun Satirical Poems Reformation (1891) I. xxxix. 350 Then wes he worsland our ane wondie swyre.

1594 C. Marlowe & T. Nashe Dido i. i Iuno..Made Hebe to direct her ayrie wheeles Into the windie countrie of the clowdes.

1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost iii. 440 On this windie Sea of Land, the Fiend Walk'd up and down. View more context for this quotation

1832 Ld. Tennyson New Year's Eve v, in Poems (new ed.) 97 The building rook 'ill caw from the windy tall elmtree.

1864 J. R. Lowell Fireside Trav. 191 As he paces the windy deck.

1873 H. W. Longfellow Monk Casal-Maggiore in Aftermath i. 71 My wretched lodging in a windy shed.

c1000 Sax. Leechd. III. 162 Windig lengten & renig sumer.

1431 J. Lydgate Minor Poems (Percy Soc.) 2 Toward the ende of wyndy Februarie.

1579 J. Dee Private Diary (1842) 5 A moyst Marche and not wyndy.

1600 R. Surflet tr. C. Estienne & J. Liébault Maison Rustique v. viii. 671 Windie drouthes.

1685 in F. P. Verney & M. M. Verney Mem. Verney Family 17th Cent. (1904) II. 382 The wettest & the windiest day that I have seene.

1749 H. Fielding Tom Jones I. i. iii. 15 It is a good Night, only a little rainy and windy . View more context for this quotation

1877 T. H. Huxley Physiography 69 A windy day soon dries a wet pavement.

1904 W. E. Hodgson Trout Fishing 210 Meanwhile the rain goes on: no longer a slight windy spray.

c1450 tr. Thomas à Kempis De Imitatione Christi ii. vii. 47 Truste not ner leene not upon a windy rede.

1590 E. Spenser Faerie Queene iii. xii. sig. Oo2^v He..In his hand a windy fan did beare.

1827 B. Disraeli Vivian Grey IV. vi. i. 12 Hans quivered like a windy reed.

1600 W. Shakespeare Much Ado about Nothing ii. i. 327 Pedro Infaith lady you haue a merry heart. Beatr. Yea my lord I thanke it, poore foole it keepes on the windy side of Care. View more context for this quotation

a1616 W. Shakespeare Twelfth Night (1623) iii. iv. 162 Still you keepe o'th windie side of the Law: good. View more context for this quotation

1814 W. Scott Waverley I. xii. 171 He had just so much solidity as kept on the windy side of insanity. View more context for this quotation

1863 C. C. Clarke Shakespeare-characters vii. 190 You cut off his resources; while you yourself keep on the windy side of assassination and murder.

c1000 Sax. Leechd. II. 214 Wiþ þa þing þe windigne æþm on men wyrcen.

1563 T. Gale Certaine Wks. Chirurg. iv. ii. f. 30 In all colde and wyndye infirmities of the brayne.

1598 J. Marston Certaine Satyres in Metamorph. Pigmalions Image 58 The windie-chollicke striu'd to haue some vent.

1620 T. Venner Via Recta viii. 185 Waterish and impure stomacks, by reason of windie crudities, wherewith they abound.

1797 M. Underwood Treat. Disorders Childhood I. 66 A costive and windy state of the bowels.

1879 St. George's Hosp. Rep. 9 348 After some windy eructations.

1889 in J. Hutchinson Archives Surg. (1898) IX. 121 When well I am generally very windy.

1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomew de Glanville De Proprietatibus Rerum xvii. clxxxvi. (Add. MS. 27944) Newe muste is ful wyndy & smoky.

1541 T. Elyot Castel of Helthe (new ed.) 28 Nauews do not nouryshe so moche as rapes, but they be euen as wyndye.

1617 F. Moryson Itinerary iii. 101 They..feede on bread very black, heauy and windy.

1698 J. Floyer Treat. Asthma (1717) ii. 25 When the Meat is crude, slimy, windy, acerb.

1897 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. III. 494 If the food be poor and windy.

a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(1)) (1850) Job xvi. 3 Whethir windi woordis [L. verba ventosa] shul not han ende?

1590 J. Davidson in Wodrow Soc. Misc. (1844) 517 Notwithstanding all the windye volumes written by them.

1602 B. Jonson Poetaster v. iii. sig. M3^v Tibullus. O, terrible, windy words! Gallus. A signe of a windy Braine. View more context for this quotation

1638 F. Junius Painting of Ancients 209 Windie and unmeasurable babbling was not long since brought to Athens out of Asia.

1660 T. Fuller Mixt Contempl. i. xii. 19 By such windy particulars [he] did blow up his losses to the summe by him nominated.

a1834 S. T. Coleridge Lit. Remains (1839) IV. 379 To what purpose then this windy declamation about John Calvin?

1868 M. Pattison Suggestions Acad. Organisation v. 245 A vague and windy rhetoric has supplanted solid acquisition.

1886 Illustr. London News 21 Aug. 194/1 The windy speeches made at public political meetings.

1513 G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid xi. viii. 33 Quhidder, gif thi marcial deidis, as thai war ay, Into thy wyndy clattryng toung sal be.

1581 J. Hamilton Catholik Traictise i. f. 21^v Ane vyndie sophist.

1597 W. Shakespeare Richard III iv. iv. 127 Windie atturnies to your Client woes. View more context for this quotation

1649 J. Milton Observations in Articles of Peace with Irish Rebels 54 There will not need more words to this Windy Railer, convicted..of all those Crimes which he..charges upon others.

1824 W. Scott Redgauntlet II. x. 224 He is a windy body when he gets on his..stories.

1825 J. T. Brockett Gloss. North Country Words Windy, noisy, verbose, marvellous in narration.

1855 J. L. Motley Rise Dutch Republic III. vi. ii. 450 The windy demagogue, who had filled half Flanders with his sound and fury.

1590 ‘Pasquil’ First Pt. Pasquils Apol. sig. D4^vts.b Let witte, which is windie obtaine the lesse, that Charitie which edifieth may gaine the more. [Cf. 1 Cor. viii. 1.]

1597 J. Payne Royall Exchange 43 Puffed vp wth wynd [i] e knowledge.

1702 W. Penn More Fruits of Solitude §110. 42 We may be too easily swell'd beyond our just Proportion, by the Windy Complements of Men.

1785 W. Cowper Task v. 269 Inflated and astrut with self-conceit, He gulps the windy diet.]

1626 T. Adams Five Serm. 10 After these blustring insolencies, and windie ostentations.

1695 J. Dryden tr. C. A. Du Fresnoy De Arte Graphica 63 He..has a windy Head, and flatters himself with the empty hope of deserving the praise of the common people.

1888 J. M. Barrie Auld Licht Idylls ix I'm thinking he was windier of the cock.

1916 D. Hankey Student in Arms vii. 130 The anticipation of danger makes many men ‘windy’.

1918 C. J. Biddle Fighting Airman (1968) 147 He thought what made the men more ‘windy’ than anything else..was the thought of..having to lie there all day before being able to get to a doctor.

a1948 D. Welch Voice through Cloud (1950) iv. 39 He [sc. a patient facing an operation] laughed so much that the man with the bandaged ear became exasperated and said, ‘Why do you make so much noise? That shows you're windy. If you didn't care, you wouldn't say anything.’

1960 J. R. Ackerley We think World of You 123 'E was windy, but I swore it was safe and that nothing could 'appen.

1985 D. Clark Performance ii. 40 ‘Are you feeling windy?’ ‘Do I look as if I am?’

1919 Narrative Battery A, 101st Field Artillery (U.S. Artillery) 118 It was a ‘windy’ place to be.., as the enemy raked it with machine gun and trench mortar fire all day and night.

1925 E. Fraser & J. Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 305 Windy Corner,..any place specially dangerous or trying to the nerves on account of enemy fire.

1927 A. M. Sullivan Old Ireland xi. 226 All the ‘windy corners’ of his front.

1928 T. E. Lawrence Let. 1 May (1938) 599 Such performances require a manner to carry them off... A windy business.