car·bun·cle

(kär′bŭng′kəl)

1. A painful localized bacterial infection of the skin and subcutaneous tissue that usually has several openings through which pus is discharged.

a. A red precious stone, especially a deep-red garnet cut as a cabochon.

b. A mythical gemstone said to emit light even in total darkness.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin carbunculus, small glowing ember, carbuncle, diminutive of carbō, carbōn-, coal; see ker- in Indo-European roots.]

car′bun′cled adj.

car·bun′cu·lar (-kyə-lər) adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.	1.	carbuncled - afflicted with or resembling a carbuncle carbuncular unhealthy - not in or exhibiting good health in body or mind; "unhealthy ulcers"
	2.	carbuncled - set with carbuncles adorned, decorated - provided with something intended to increase its beauty or distinction

Mentioned in

carbuncular

References in periodicals archive

He showed me a few trees that survived the devastation in Ermita, with gnarled and carbuncled trunks hit by shell fire, one in a very narrow alley near the bookshop and the other near the corner of Padre Faura and Adriatico.

Holding out in the waiting room

Wols-like works from the late 1940s, the magnificent "Infinity Net" paintings of the late '50s, "accumulations" and "self-obliteration" projects of the '60s, a new mirrored "infinity corridor," and other images made just this spring, rounded out by carbuncled furniture, painted bodies, visionary writing, scrapbooks, photographs, and clothes, all testify to the remarkable vitality of an oeuvre that spans the optical formalism of Zero and Nul and the psychosexual performance of Kembra Pfahler.

Yayoi Kusama

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