Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To adorn or decorate with wavy or winding lines.
  • adjective Bearing wavy, wormlike lines.
  • adjective Having a wormlike motion; twisting or wriggling.
  • adjective Infested with worms; worm-eaten.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To become full of worms; be eaten by worms.
  • To ornament with winding and waving lines, as if caused by the movement of worms.
  • In zoöl.: Forming a vermiculation; fine, close-set, and wavy or tortuous, as color-marks; vermicular: as, vermiculate color-markings.
  • In entomology: Marked with tortuous impressions, as if worm-eaten, as the elytra of certain beetles; vermiculated. Having thick-set tufts of parallel hairs.
  • Full of worms; infested with worms; worm-eaten.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Wormlike in shape; covered with wormlike elevations; marked with irregular fine lines of color, or with irregular wavy impressed lines like worm tracks.
  • adjective Crawling or creeping like a worm; hence, insinuating; sophistical.
  • transitive verb To form or work, as by inlaying, with irregular lines or impressions resembling the tracks of worms, or appearing as if formed by the motion of worms.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb to decorate with lines resembling the tracks of worms
  • adjective Like a worm; resembling a worm.
  • adjective Vermiculated.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective infested with or damaged (as if eaten) by worms
  • verb decorate with wavy or winding lines
  • adjective decorated with wormlike tracery or markings

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin vermiculārī, vermiculāt-, from vermiculus, diminutive of vermis, worm; see vermicular.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin vermiculatus ("inlaid in wavy lines"), past participle of vermiculor ("to be full of worms or worm-eaten"), from vermiculus ("little worm")

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Examples

  • On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming.

    Entropic Realism and ‘The Road’ « Gerry Canavan 2010

  • Max Baucus's Medicare coverage for people exposed to asbestos in a vermiculate mine in Libby, Montana;

    Etch-a-Sketch: Name that giveaway 2009

  • On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming.

    Archive 2006-11-01 Bruce Schauble 2006

  • On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming.

    The Catastrophist Bruce Schauble 2006

  • Surely, like as many substances in nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt into worms; — so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to putrefy and dissolve into a number of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and (as I may term them) vermiculate questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness and life of spirit, but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality.

    The Advancement of Learning 2003

  • MacMurrough leant at his shoulder to over-read, piecing together with difficulty the vermiculate letters.

    At Swim, Two Boys Jamie O’Neill 2002

  • MacMurrough leant at his shoulder to over-read, piecing together with difficulty the vermiculate letters.

    At Swim, Two Boys Jamie O’Neill 2002

  • My life seemed only a vermiculate one, a crawling about of half-thoughts-half-feelings through the corpse of a decaying existence.

    Wilfrid Cumbermede George MacDonald 1864

  • That love should be capable of ending in such vermiculate results as too often appear, is no more against the loveliness of the divine idea, than that the forms of man and woman, the spirit gone from them, should degenerate to such things as may not be looked upon.

    Malcolm George MacDonald 1864

  • Religion itself in the hearts of the unreal, is a dead thing; what seems life in it, is the vermiculate life of a corpse.

    Hope of the Gospel George MacDonald 1864

Comments

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  • also vermicular or vermiculated

    April 19, 2007

  • I have never used this word before - but I intend to today!

    April 19, 2007

  • The lover of flowers affirms

    That blossoms speak meaningful terms.

    The message vermiculate

    Is no less articulate -

    The unsubtle sentence of worms.

    April 19, 2019