spicula

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɪkjʊlə

Noun

spicula

1. plural of spiculum

Noun

spicula (plural spiculas or spiculae)

1. A little spike; a spikelet or spiculum.
   • 1738 December, C. Mortimer, “VI. An Abstract by C. Mortimer, M.D. Secr[etary of the] R[oyal] S[ociety] of an Inaugural Dissertation Published at Wittemberg 1736. by Dr. Abraham Vater, F.R.S. Concerning the Cure of the Bite of a Viper, Cured by Sallad-oil.”, in Philosophical Transactions. Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours, of the Ingenious, in Many Considerable Parts of the World, volume XXXIX, number 451, London: Printed for T. Woodward, […] ; and C. Davis […] ; printers to the Royal Society, →OCLC, page 443:

     He concludes this Diſſertation, by endeavouring to explain the Manner of its [olive oil's] operating, which he attributes to its fat inviſcating Nature, whereby it ſheathes the Spicula of the Poiſon.

   • 1861, Various, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861‎^[1]:

     And yet Thoreau camps down by Walden Pond and shows us that absolutely nothing in Nature has ever yet been described,--not a bird nor a berry of the woods, nor a drop of water, nor a spicula of ice, nor summer, nor winter, nor sun, nor star.

   • 1906, John Tyndall, Six Lectures on Light‎^[2]:

     Introducing the alum-cell, and placing the coating of hoar-frost at the intensely luminous focus of the electric lamp, not a spicula of the dazzling frost is melted.

2. A pointed fleshy appendage.
   • 1904, John Morley, Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson‎^[3]:

     Nature 'publishes itself in creatures, reaching from particles and spicula, through transformation on transformation to the highest symmetries.

Latin

Noun

spīcula

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of spīculum

References

• “spicula”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• spicula in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• spicula in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.