Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of twitching or of causing to twitch.
  • noun A twitching or convulsive motion of a muscular fiber. Compare subsultus.

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

  • The act of twitching, or of causing to twitch.
  • (Med.) A local twitching, or convulsive motion, of a muscular fiber, especially of the face.

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

  • noun obsolete A spasmodic twitching

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

  • noun a sudden muscle spasm; especially one caused by a nervous condition

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

vellicate +‎ -ion

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Examples

  • At first vellication is painful but the skin becomes used to it.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • The locks are dyed dun, frizzled, and greased; the Widads or learned men remove them, and none but paupers leave them in their natural state; the mustachios are clipped close, the straggling whisker is carefully plucked, and the pile — erroneously considered impure — is removed either by vellication, or by passing the limbs through the fire.

    First footsteps in East Africa 2003

  • At first vellication is painful but the skin becomes used to it.

    Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855

  • In the case of the axilla-pile, vellication is the popular process: see vol. ix.

    Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855

  • [FN#376] This is the popular idea of a bushy "veil of nature" in women: it is always removed by depilatories and vellication.

    Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855

  • The locks are dyed dun, frizzled, and greased; the Widads or learned men remove them, and none but paupers leave them in their natural state; the mustachios are clipped close, the straggling whisker is carefully plucked, and the pile -- erroneously considered impure -- is removed either by vellication, or by passing the limbs through the fire.

    First Footsteps in East Africa Richard Francis Burton 1855

  • Here the pleasureable idea of playfulness coincides with the vellication; and there is no voluntary exertion used to diminish the sensation, as there would be, if a child should endeavour to tickle himself.

    Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • 376 This is the popular idea of a bushy “veil of nature” in women: it is always removed by depilatories and vellication.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

Comments

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  • act of twitching or causing to twitch

    November 6, 2007

  • "Since then, having succeeded in restoring them to that previous state in which their livelihoods depended on a meager spring (one that delivers on a monthly basis), he eases a vellication of remorse with the thought that they would be amply remunerated with freedom of time and leisure, although he knows the leisure of redundancy cannot truly be enjoyed."

    The No Variations by Luis Chitarroni, translated by Darren Koolman, p 55

    September 16, 2013