defervesce

Verb

defervesce (third-person singular simple present defervesces, present participle defervescing, simple past and past participle defervesced)

1. (intransitive) To experience an abatement or resolution of fever.
   • [Carl Reinhold August] Wunderlich, who has made probably more observations with the thermometer than any other living man, has determined, for example, that in simple croupous pneumonia, where the temperature does not exceed 104°, Fahrenheit, the pulse 120, and the respiration 40 in the minute, the...1867 March 29, W. H. Draper, “The Thermometer in the Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Treatment, of Disease: Extract from Address … Read before the New York Medical Journal Association, March 29th, 1867....
   • [W]e find that the duration and succession of the febrile phenomena constitute five principal groups. […] 2. Fevers which are essentially continuous in their course (continued fevers), which exhibit but slight daily differences of temperature during their fastigium or acme, and defervesce rapidly...1871, C[arl Reinhold] A[ugust] Wunderlich, “Fundamental Principles”, in W. Bathurst Woodman, transl., On the Temperature in Diseases: A Manual of Medical Thermometry. … Translated from the Second...
2. (figuratively, intransitive) To become less agitated; to cool down.
   • [I]n common ſcortation, or ſimple adultery, there is not a love analogous to conjugial love, for it is only a heat of the fleſh, which inſtantly deferveſces, and ſometimes does not leave any trace of love behind it towards it's object; […] It is otherwiſe in the caſe of polygamical ſcortation...1794, Emanuel Swedenborg, “Of Concubinage”, in [anonymous], transl., The Delights of Wisdom Concerning Conjugial Love: […] Translated from the Latin […], London: […] R. Hindmarsh, […], →OCLC...
   • [T]he angry are gone out of power; that is, out of counsel, out of reason, out of mind; for the power of these ought to control the whole soul. […] [L]et them be implored and entreated, if they have some means of revenge, that they will defer it to another time, until anger shall have defervesced....1839, Marcus Tullius Cicero, “Book IV. On the Perturbations.”, in George Alexander Otis, transl., The Tusculan Questions of Marcus Tullius Cicero. In Five Books. […], Boston, Mass.: James B. Dow...