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  1. vellicate love

Definitions

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To twitch; cause to twitch convulsively, as the muscles and nerves of animals.
  2. To move spasmodically; twitch, as a nerve.
  3. To carp or detract.

Wiktionary

  1. v. to touch (a body part) lightly so as to excite the surface nerves and cause uneasiness, laughter, or spasmodic movements
  2. v. to irritate as if by a nip, pinch, or tear
  3. v. to pinch
  4. v. make to twitch

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To twitch; to cause to twitch convulsively.
  2. v. To move spasmodically; to twitch.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. irritate as if by a nip, pinch, or tear
  2. v. touch (a body part) lightly so as to excite the surface nerves and cause uneasiness, laughter, or spasmodic movements

Examples

  • “But our baths now inflame, vellicate, and distress; and the air which we draw is a mixture of air and water, disturbs the whole body, tosses and displaces every atom, till we quench the fiery particles and allay their heat.”

    Essays and Miscellanies

  • “Some think these almonds have a penetrating, abstersive quality, are able to cleanse the face, and clear it from the common freckles; and therefore, when they are eaten, by their bitterness vellicate and fret the pores, and by that means draw down the ascending vapors from the head.”

    Essays and Miscellanies

  • “If any shall undertake to vellicate and pluck some of the branches, rent from the roots and principles of the whole discourse, I shall freely give them leave to enjoy their own wisdom and imaginary conquest.”

    The Death of Death in the Death of Christ

  • “There can be no doubt that bodies which are rough and angular, rouse and vellicate the organs of feeling, causing a sense of pain, which consists in the violent tension or contraction of the muscular fibres.”

    Why Smoothness is Beautiful

  • “Thus, if you vellicate the throat with a feather, nausea is produced; if you wound it with a penknife, pain is induced, but not sickness.”

    Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life

  • “I want this ennui to finally gormandize me, obliterate me, vellicate me until my bones break from the shaking.”

    Art of Starving

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synonyms (1)

Words with the same meaning

  1. twitch

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. irritate
  1. itch

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  • sophy26 "It was nothing much--just a tiny vellicating muscle in the corner of the left eye, like a secret wink--but the annoying thing was that it refused to disappear until an hour or so after the train or plane or whatever it was had been safely caught." The Way up to Heaven by Roald Dahl Oct 31, 2010

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‘vellicate’ has been looked up 2399 times, loved by 7 people, added to 23 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 14.