pedicular

From Latin pedicularis, from pediculus (“louse”). Compare French pédiculaire.

• Rhymes: -ɪkjʊlə(ɹ)

pedicular (not comparable)

1. Of or relating to lice.
   • 1820, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, letter to Hartley Coleridge in H. J. Jackson (ed.), Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Selected Letters, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987, p. 226,

     We proceed—(at a tortoise or pedicular Crawl, you will say—but believe me, dear Boy! there is no other way of attaining a clear and productive Insight […] [)]

   • 1847, Robert Southey, chapter 212, in The Doctor, &c.‎, volume 7, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, page 139:

     Has humanity ever been put to a viler use than by the Banians of Surat, who support a hospital for vermin in that city, and regale the souls of their friends who are undergoing penance in the shape of fleas, or in loathsome pedicular form, by hiring beggars to go in among them, and afford them pasture for the night!

   • 1860, Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Currents and Counter-currents in Medical Science” in Medical Communications of the Massachusetts Medical Society, Volume 9, 2nd Series, Volume 5, p. 321,

     Even now the Homoeopathists have been […] outraging human nature with infusions of the pediculus capitis; that is, of course, as we understand their dilutions, the names of these things; for if a fine-tooth-comb insect were drowned in Lake Superior, we cannot agree with them in thinking that every drop of its waters would be impregnated with all the pedicular virtues they so highly value.

2. Caused by lice.
   • 1660, James Howell, Thērologia, The Parly of Beasts‎, London: William Palmer, Section 2, p. 26:

     And as for my Body, this shape which I now bear is more healthfull farr and neat, for now I am not subject to breed Lice and other Vermin; And whereas this pedicular disease, with a nomberlesse sort of other maladies and distempers, attend Mankind, ther’s but one onely disease that our Species is subject unto, which the Veterenarians or Farriers call Malila […]

   • 1750, Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, London: W. Innys et al., 6th edition, Volume 2, entry “Pedicularis morbus,”

     Herod is said to have died of the Pedicular disease.

   • 1836, David D. Davis, chapter 3, in The Principles and Practice of Obstetric Medicine‎, volume 1, London: Taylor & Walton, page 35:

     It became a matter of suspicion, that the mons veneris might be the seat of a pedicular affection.

   • 1839, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “On the Devil, and Devils”, in Harry Buxton Forman, editor, The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley in Verse and Prose‎, volume 6, London: Reeves and Turner, published 1880, page 400:

     The pedicular diseases on this view of the subject may be the result of diabolical influence, the sensorium of every separate louse being the habitation of a distinct imp.

   • 1885, H. v. Ziemssen, Handbook of Diseases of the Skin, New York: William Wood, “The Parasitic Diseases of the Skin,” p. 540,

     Hebra did not meet with pedicular ulcers, nor did he find lice under or in the skin; they were to be found always either on the hair, hairy parts, or the clothes.

3. Having the lousy distemper, phthiriasis[1]; infested with lice.
   • 1923, Heinrich E. Buchholz, chapter 14, in Of What Use Are Common People? A Study in Democracy‎, Baltimore: Warwick & York, pages 196–197:

     When a philosopher condescends to regard commonplace man, he assumes much the attitude that a dandy might if brought, perforce, into contact with some one suspected of being pedicular.

   • 1968, Roger Kahn, The Passionate People: What it Means To Be A Jew in America‎, New York: William Morrow, Part 2, p. 93:

     The dead Americans stirred Harry more than the pedicular European Jews he observed at Bergen-Belsen.

4. (biology) Relating to a stem or pedicle.

• transpedicular

• pediculicide
• pediculosis
• pediculous

Borrowed from French pédiculaire.

pedicular m or n (feminine singular pediculară, masculine plural pediculari, feminine and neuter plural pediculare)

1. pedicular