costive

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

From Middle French costivé, past participle of costiver (“to constipate”), ultimately from Latin cōnstīpātus (“constipated”). Doublet of constipate.

For in my belly I am very costive, and cannot well cagar without gnashing my teeth and making many filthy faces. — Gargantua and Pantagruel, François Rabelais
He who commits his decrepitude to the press plays the fool if he think to squeeze anything out thence that does not relish of dreaming, dotage, and drivelling; the mind grows costive and thick in growing old. — Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete, Michel de Montaigne
’twill exasperate thy symptoms,—check thy perspirations—evaporate thy spirits—waste thy animal strength, dry up thy radical moisture, bring thee into a costive habit of body,——impair thy health,——and hasten all the infirmities of thy old age.—O my uncle! my uncle Toby. C H A P. XXIX I WOULD not give a groat for that man’s knowledge in pen-craft, who does not understand this,——That the best plain narrative in the world, tacked very close to the last spirited apostrophe to my uncle Toby——would have felt both cold and vapid upon the reader’s palate;—therefore I forthwith put an end to the chapter, though I was in the middle of my story. — The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman, Laurence Sterne

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