rheumy

Etymology

From rheum + -y (suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘having the quality of’).

adj

1. Of, relating to, or made of rheum (“thin or watery discharge of mucus or serum”); watery.
2. Producing rheum from the mucous membranes; (also figurative) especially of the eyes: filled with rheum; watery.
   Her lips were clammy, but in her rheumy eyes there still burned the light of a vague desire. 1929, Robert Dean Frisbie, The Book of Puka-Puka, London: Eland Books, published 2019, page 100
   Awoke calm in the morning, clearheaded. Lungs rheumier than usual, though. 1998, Jascha Kessler, Rapid Transit: 1948: An Unsentimental Education, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, page 224
   Her wizened face beneath straggling gray hair gathered in a bun, held the kindest, but rheumiest of faded blue eyes. 20 January 2014, Rebeccah Apling, chapter 5, in The Gutenberg Connection, Bloomington, Ind.: WestBow Press, Thomas Nelson & Zondervan, page 57
   Eventually we'd find a date and we'd meet up, his eyes a little rheumier, his untrained eyebrows even more adventurous than last year. 2022, Hugh Bonneville, “Hidden on the Hard Drive”, in Playing under the Piano: From Downton to Darkest Peru, New York, N.Y.: Other Press, part 3 (Roll Sound), page 282
3. (literary, poetic, obsolete) Especially of the air: damp, moist.