rheum

Noun

rheum (countable and uncountable, plural rheums)

1. (uncountable) Thin or watery discharge of mucus or serum, especially from the eyes or nose, formerly thought to cause disease.
   • You that did voide your rume vpon my beard, / And foote me as you ſpurne a ſtranger curre / Ouer your threſhold, […]c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
   • [T]thronging theaters of people (as well Aliens as Engliſhmen) hiued thither about the ſelling of fiſh and Herring, from Saint Michael to Saint Martin, and there built ſutlers booths and tabernacles, to canopie their heads in from the rhewme of the heauens, or the clouds diſſoluing Cataracts.1599, [Thomas] Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, […], London: […] [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby] […], →OCLC, page 10
2. Illness or disease thought to be caused by such secretions; a catarrh, a cold; rheumatism.
   • And not as ſome yeeres ſince, I ſaw a Deane of S. Hillarie of Poictiers, reduced by reaſon and the incommoditie of his melancholy to ſuch a continuall ſolitarineſſe, that when I entered into his chamber he had never remooved one ſteppe out of it in twoo and twenty yeares before: yet had all his...1603, Michel de Montaigne, “Of the Recompences or Rewards of Honour”, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, page 227
3. (poetic) Tears.
   • Rich. And ſay, what ſtore of parting tears were ſhed? / Aum. Faith none for me: except the Northeaſt wind / Which then grew bitterly againſt our face, / Awak’d the ſleepie rhewme, and ſo by chance / Did grace our hollow parting with a teare.1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...