PURSY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does pursy mean? 

• PURSY (adjective)
  The adjective PURSY has 1 sense:

1. breathing laboriously or convulsively

  Familiarity information: PURSY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PURSY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Breathing laboriously or convulsively

Synonyms:

blown; pursy; short-winded; winded

Similar:

breathless; dyspneal; dyspneic; dyspnoeal; dyspnoeic (not breathing or able to breathe except with difficulty)

 Context examples 

The young man listened to this tale of wrong with all the seriousness that he could maintain; but at the sight of the pursy red-faced man and the dignity with which he bore him, the laughter came so thick upon him that he had to lean up against a tree-trunk.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was still looking at the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her appearance, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a finger archly against her snub nose, as she ogled Steerforth, she was obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)