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full; hence, to make hot and close; to render stifling. Sandys. His chamber was commonly stived with friends or suitors of one kind or other. Sir H. Wotton.

A Dutch coin, and money of account, of the value of two cents, or about one penny sterling; hence, figuratively, anything of little worth.

Stews; a brothel. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Tending to adjust. [R.]

Containing copses of trees or shrubs; covered with shrubs. Bartram.

Tending to arrest. McCosh.

Lending aid, helping.

Attesting; furnishing evidence.

Presumptuous. [R.]

taining to, indicating, or attended with, congestion in some part of the body; as, a congestive fever.

Reserved; formal; close; cold. [Obs.] "A costive brain." Prior. "Costive of laughter." B. Jonson. You must be frank, but without indiscretion; and close, but without being costive. Lord Chesterfield.

In a costive manner.

Inability to express one's self; stiffness. [Obs.] A reverend disputant of the same costiveness in public elocution with myself. Wakefield.

Final; conclusive; ending. [R.]

Pertaining to digestion; having the power to cause or promote digestion; as, the digestive ferments. Digestive cheese and fruit there sure will be. B. Jonson. Digestive apparatus, the organs of food digestion, esp. the alimentary canal and glands connected with it. -- Digestive salt, the chloride of potassium.…

Serving or tending to exhaust; exhibiting all the facts or arguments; as, an exhaustive method. Ex*haust"ive*ly, adv.

rthful; sportive. -- Fes"tive*ly, adv. The glad circle round them yield their souls To festive mirth and wit that knows no gall. Thomson.

Forward; early; -- said of fruits. [Obs.]

Inexhaustible. Thomson.

Having no mirth; not festive or merry; dull; cheerless; gloomy; forlorn. [R.]