upwreath

English

Alternative forms

• upwreathe

Etymology

up- +‎ wreath

Verb

upwreath (third-person singular simple present upwreaths, present participle upwreathing, simple past and past participle upwreathed)

1. (intransitive) To rise with a curling motion; to curl upward, as smoke does.
   • 1822, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Apologia pro Vita Sua” in Ernest Hartley Coleridge (ed.), The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912, p. 345,^[1]

     In unctuous cones of kindling coal,

     Or smoke upwreathing from the pipe’s trim bole,

     His [the poet’s] gifted ken can see

     Phantoms of sublimity.

   • 1850, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Building of the Ship”, in The Seaside and the Fireside‎^[2], Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, page 18:

     And around it columns of smoke, upwreathing,
     Rose from the boiling, bubbling, seething
     Caldron, that glowed,
     And overflowed
     With the black tar, heated for the sheathing.

   • 1911, Arthur Lynch, Prince Azreel: A Poem with Prose Notes‎^[3], London: Stephen Swift, page 41:

     Ambrosial banquet for Olympus fit,
     Whose savours with the sweetest incense breathed
     Of youth, and hope, and energy, and wit,
     And thoughts of love that with these fumes upwreathed.

   • 1979, Julian Moynahan, chapter 3, in Where the Land and Water Meet‎^[4], New York: William Morrow, page 54:

     And a little off to the left, at about a mile’s distance, lay a large rubbish and garbage dump, from which coils of black and yellow smoke upwreathed into the peaceful Sunday morning air.

2. (transitive) To twist or entwine (something) upward.
   • 1830, Reginald Heber, “Morte d'Arthur: A Fragment,” Canto 2, stanza 14, in The Poetical Works of Reginald Heber, London: Frederick Warne, no date, p. 210,^[5]

     […] coiled around his crest, a dragon long

     Upwreathed its golden spires the wavy plumes among.

   • 1861, Joseph Noel Paton, “Hymn to Aphrodite”, in Poems by a Painter‎^[6], Edinburgh: William Blackwood, page 133:

     By thy upwreathed locks that scent the wind,
     O! hear my prayer, and aid; for Myrrha is unkind!

3. (transitive) To send (something) upward in curls.
   • 1911, C. G. Blanden, “Redwood”, in The Upper Trail‎^[7], Chicago: The Alderbrink Press, page 200:

     And your fair vestals, watchful, swing
     Sweet incense for their welcoming,
     The while our thuribles shall be
     Upwreathing odorous thoughts to thee;