English

Adjective

lymphatic ‎(comparative more lymphatic, superlative most lymphatic)

1. (anatomy) Pertaining to lymph or the lymphatic system.
2. Lacking energy or enthusiasm; having characteristics once associated with an excess of lymph: lack of muscle tone, paleness, sluggishness, etc.
   • 1859, Charles Dickens, “The Haunted House” in Three Ghost Stories, London: Chapman & Hall, 1894, p. 129

     Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most discomfiting nature. I am unable to say whether she was of an unusually lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her, but this young woman became a mere Distillery for the production of the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with.

   • 1898, Thomas Hardy, “Lines” in Wessex Poems and Other Verses, London: Macmillan & Co., 1919, p. 224,

     Who has not marked, where the full cheek should be,

     Incipient lines of lank flaccidity,

     Lymphatic pallor where the pink should glow,

     And where the throb of transport, pulses low?—

   • 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, 2001, Part One, Chapter 4,

     Hari, the holy man, who was to be the pundit that day, was just as Mr Biswas remembered him, just as soft-spoken and lymphatic. His felt hat sat softly on his head. He greeted Mr Biswas without rancour, without pleasure, without interest.

3. (obsolete) Madly enthusiastic; frantic.
   • 1638, Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels into Africa and Asia the Great, Book I, p. 28,

     A Negro stood by all the while trembling, now and then lifting up his hands and eyes, muttering his black Art to some hobgoblin, and (when we least suspected it) skips out, and in a limphatic rapture drew a long knife which he brandisht about his head 7 or 8 times, and after so many spells put it up againe; he then kisses the humid earth 3 times and rises merrily: upon a sudden, the skie cleared and no more noise affrighted us.

Derived terms

• lymphatically
• lymphatic node
• lymphatic system

Translations

Noun

lymphatic ‎(plural lymphatics)

1. (anatomy) A vessel that transports lymph.

Translations

See also

• thoracic duct