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Pursy, Pursiness

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Broken-winded, or in a bloated state in which the wind is short and difficult. (French, poussi-f, same meaning.)

A fat and pursy man. Shakespeare has “pursy Insolence,” the insolence of Jesurun, “who waxed fat and kicked.” In Hamlet we have “the fatness of these pursy times”—i.e. wanton or self-indulgent times.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.