Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Capable of being perspired or evacuated through the pores of the skin.
  • Capable of perspiring or emitting perspiration.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Capable of being perspired.
  • adjective rare Emitting perspiration; perspiring.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Capable of being perspired.
  • adjective Emitting perspiration; perspiring.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compare French perspirable.

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Examples

  • _ It has been shewn by Dr. Priestley and Mr. Ingenhouz that the green matter at the bottom of cisterns, and the fresh leaves of plants immersed in water, give out considerable quantities of vital air in the sun-shine; that is, the perspirable matter of plants (which is water much divided in its egress from their minute pores) becomes decomposed by the sun's light, and converted into two kinds of air, the vital and inflammable airs.

    The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • In 1744, Dr. John Mitchell - writing in the influential Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society -- not only argued that the black skin of Negroes was the result of its thickness and density, which better suited them for hard labor, "the perspirable Matter of black or tawny People is more subtil and volatile in its Nature; and more acrid, penetrating, and offensive, in its Effects." [p. 17]

    The South Continues to "Make" Race: Will the Supreme Court Follow? 2006

  • Diaphoretics are medicines that promote or cause perspirable discharge by the skin.

    Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 Barkham Burroughs

  • The perspirable matter which passes off from the skin becomes charged with the odor of alcohol in the drunkard, and is so far changed, in some cases, as to furnish evidence of the kind of spirit drank.

    Select Temperance Tracts American Tract Society

  • The skin absorbs the water and becomes softer and more perspirable.

    Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not 1860

  • A laboring man, in the open fields, probably throws off from his skin ten times the amount of perspirable matter, which is evolved from the skin of a person of sedentary pursuits.

    A Treatise on Domestic Economy For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School Catharine Esther Beecher 1839

  • This disease has never ben communicated to an individual from one infected by means of the perspirable matter; this, therefore, is a proof that the contagious part of the disease is not of a volatile nature.

    The Dog William Youatt 1811

  • Secondly, the glands without convolution, as the capillary vessels, which unite the terminations of the arteries and veins; and separate both the mucus, which lubricates the cellular membrane, and the perspirable matter, which preserves the skin moist and flexible.

    Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • To these they convey the chyle and mucus, with a part of the perspirable matter, and atmospheric moisture; all which, after having passed through these glands, and having suffered some change in them, are carried forward into the blood, and supply perpetual nourishment to the system, or replace its hourly waste.

    Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • At the very instant that the body is exposed naked to the cold air, an unusual movement is felt in the bowels; as is experienced by boys going into the cold bath: this could not occur from an obstruction of the perspirable matter, since there is not time, for that to be returned to the bowels by the course of the circulation.

    Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

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