Definition of "pedicular" in English

adjective

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 […] [)]
   • 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.

   • 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.
   • 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; infested with lice.

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