moorish

See also: Moorish, and moreish

English

Etymology

From moor +‎ -ish.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈmɔːɹɪʃ/

Adjective

moorish (comparative more moorish, superlative most moorish)

1. (now rare) Of ground, soil etc: boggy, marshy. [from 15th c.]
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act IIII, scene ii:

     Make heauen to frowne and euery fixed ſtarre
     To ſucke vp poiſon from the Mooriſh Fens,
     And poure it in this glorious Tyrants throat.

   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
     , I.iii.3:

     [G]low-worms, fire-drakes, meteors, ignis fatuus […] with many such that appear in moorish grounds, about churchyards, moist valleys, or where battles have been fought […] .

2. Resembling or characteristic of a moor; abounding in moorland. [from 16th c.]
   • 1791, James Boswell, Life of Johnson, Oxford, published 2008, page 880:

     He recommended to me to plant a considerable part of a large moorish farm which I had purchased, and he made several calculations of the expence and profit: for he delighted in exercising his mind on the science of numbers.

   • 1899, John Buchan, No Man's Land:

     The Lent term had pulled me down, a week of modest enjoyment thereafter in town had finished the work; and I drank in the sharp moorish air like a thirsty man who has been forwandered among deserts.

Synonyms

• moory, quaggy, swampy; see also Thesaurus:marshy