Literary notes about Viscous (AI summary)
The term "viscous" is used in literature to evoke a sense of thickness, stickiness, and slow movement in both literal and metaphorical contexts. In older herbal and medical writings, it describes bodily fluids and humors—thick blood or exudates that hinder or require cleansing [1][2][3][4]—while in more descriptive narratives, it paints imagery of landscapes and substances, such as a "viscous sea" or a clinging, sticky web that suggests something inescapably dense [5][6]. Scientific and technical descriptions also employ the term to capture the resistant flow of materials like lava or tar [7][8][9], demonstrating its versatility across genres to enrich the sensory and conceptual depth of a scene.
- It promotes insensible perspiration, dissolves all phlegmatic and viscous humors that are apt to obstruct the narrow channels of the nerves.
— from Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary ReaderBeing Selections from the Chief American Writers by Benj. N. (Benjamin Nicholas) Martin - If then the blood be more thick and viscous than ordinary, it cannot easily be separated without cutting and cleansing medicines.
— from The Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper - The herb is really saturnine, something cold, viscous, and slimy.
— from The Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper - It cuts and divides humours that are tough and viscous, and therefore helps the stomach and bowels afflicted by such humours, and sour belchings.
— from The Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper - This kingdom extended over the other, like a viscous sea.
— from An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner - The thought of the woman's personality clung to me like a viscous web.
— from To-morrow? by Victoria Cross - It is clear therefore that the physics of moving viscous fluids cannot solve the problem.
— from Ameboid movement by Asa A. (Asa Arthur) Schaeffer - The lava was sluggish, viscous, heavy stuff, full of bubbles, pushing itself along and kneading itself like dough.
— from Castellinaria, and Other Sicilian Diversions by Henry Festing Jones - So long as we employed ordinary forms of taps or valves, so long (even with filtration) did we experience difficulties with the flow of viscous tar.
— from Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 by Various
