healthsome

healthsome

English

Etymology

health +‎ -some

Adjective

healthsome (comparative more healthsome, superlative most healthsome)

1. (archaic) Conducive to good health.
   • 1544, Peter Betham (translator), The Preceptes of Warre by Jacopo di Porcia, London, Book 1, Section 192 “To kepe thyne armye healthfull,”

     The health of thyne Armye is mayntayned by exercyse, by healthsome countrie and swete ayers: but chefelye where is plentye and abundaunce of vytayles.

   • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,
     To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,

   • 1886, George Gissing, Demos, London: Smith, Elder & Co., Volume 2, Chapter 2, p. 54,

     A breeze from the north-west chased the blood to healthsome leaping, and caught the breath like an unexpected kiss.

   • 1894, Revised Version of the Bible, The Wisdom of Solomon 1:14,

     For he created all things that they might have being:

     And the generative powers of the world are healthsome,

     And there is no poison of destruction in them:

     Nor hath Hades royal dominion upon earth,

   • 1982, Roald Dahl, The BFG, Puffin, 2013, “The Bloodbottler,”

     ‘It is not healthsome always to be eating meaty things.’

Synonyms

• salubrious
• wholesome