spicula

English

Noun

spicula

1. Plural form of spiculum

Noun

spicula (plural spiculas or spiculae)

1. A little spike; a spikelet.
   • 1861, Various, Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861^[1]:

     And yet Thoreau camps down by Walden Pond and shows us that absolutely nothing in Nature has ever yet been described,--not a bird nor a berry of the woods, nor a drop of water, nor a spicula of ice, nor summer, nor winter, nor sun, nor star.

   • 1906, John Tyndall, Six Lectures on Light^[2]:

     Introducing the alum-cell, and placing the coating of hoar-frost at the intensely luminous focus of the electric lamp, not a spicula of the dazzling frost is melted.

2. A pointed fleshy appendage.
   • 1904, John Morley, Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson^[3]:

     Nature 'publishes itself in creatures, reaching from particles and spicula, through transformation on transformation to the highest symmetries.

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Latin

Noun

spīcula

1. nominative plural of spīculum
2. accusative plural of spīculum
3. vocative plural of spīculum