pedicular

adj

1. (not-comparable)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 […] [)]”

   “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!”

2. (not-comparable)Caused by lice.

   “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.”

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

   “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. (not-comparable)Having the lousy distemper, phthiriasis; infested with lice.

   “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.”

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

4. (not-comparable)Relating to a stem or pedicle.