[‘ /trans./ To make wet; to moisten.']
Forms: lME *madifie*, lME 16 *madefie*, 15 *madefye*, 15–16 *madefy*, 17 *madify*, 17 *madifye*.
Etymology: < French /madéfier/ (mid 14th cent.) < classical Latin /madefacere/ < the base of madēre to be wet (see madid adj.) + facere to make (see fact n., int., and adv.); compare -fy suffix. (N.E.D. (1904) indicates the stress as ˈmadefy.)
/Obs./
/trans./ To make wet; to moisten.
▸?1440 tr. Palladius /De Re Rustica/ (Duke Humfrey) (1896) iv. 145 Her seed yf me reclyne In baume..Or madifie hit so in oil lauryne.
1598 A. M. tr. J. Guillemeau /Frenche Chirurg./ 18 b/2 A sponge which is madefied and wetted in wyne.
1599 A. M. tr. O. Gaebelkhover /Bk. Physicke/ 2/2 Madefye it with Rosewater.
1618 T. Adams /Happines of Church/ i. 170 The Bonners and butchers rode ouer the faces of Gods Saints, and madefied the earth with their blouds.
1671 J. Webster /Metallographia/ xvi. 235 Being madefied, it doth most easily contract a rust.
Derivatives
madefication n.
1727 N. Bailey /Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict./ II, /Madification/, a moistening or wetting.
madefying adj.
1646 Sir T. Browne /Pseudodoxia Epidemica/ vi. xii. 334 Any kinde of vaporous or madefying excretion.