I have seen it questioned whether in the first syllable of ‘fulsome’ we are to find ‘foul’ or ‘full.’ There should be no question on the matter; seeing that ‘fulsome’ is properly no more than ‘full,’ and then secondly that which by its fulness and overfulness produces first satiety, and then loathing and disgust. This meaning of ‘fulsome’ is still retained in our only present application of the word, namely to compliments and flattery, which by their grossness produce this effect on him who is their object; but the word had once many more applications than this. See the quotation from Pope, s. v. ‘Bacchanal.’
His lean, pale, hoar, and withered corpse, grew fulsome, fair, and fresh.
Golding, Ovid’s Metamorphosis, b. vii.
The next is Doctrine, in whose lips there dwells
A spring of honey, sweeter than its name,
Honey which never fulsome is, yet fills
The widest souls.
Beaumont, Psyche, b. xix. st. 210.
Chaste and modest as he [Persius] is esteemed, it cannot be denied but that in some cases he is broad and fulsome. No decency is considered; no fulsomeness omitted.—Dryden, Dedication of Translations from Juvenal.
Making her soul to loathe dainty meat, or putting a surfeit and fulsomeness into all which she enjoys.—Rogers, Naaman the Syrian, p. 32.