lymphatic

Etymology

From lymph + -atic.

adj

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.
   Eleonore Lemindre, aged 34, tailoress, of a sanguine lymphatic temperament, having suffered great depression of spirits, experienced, in the course of 1820, symptoms of what is called disease of the heart. 1833, R. J. Bertin, translated by Charles W. Chauncy, Treatise on the Diseases of the Heart, and Great Vessels, Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blnachard, page 188
   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? 1898, Thomas Hardy, “Lines”, in Wessex Poems and Other Verses, London: Macmillan & Co., published 1919, page 224
   He was a lymphatic, half-witted Hindu youth, who lived his life in almost complete silence[…] 1934, George Orwell, Burmese Days
   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. 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Vintage International, published 2001, Part One, Chapter 4
3. (obsolete) Madly enthusiastic; frantic.
   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. 1638, Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels into Africa and Asia the Great, Book I, p. 28

noun

1. (anatomy) A vessel that transports lymph.