vermiculation

Noun

vermiculation (countable and uncountable, plural vermiculations)

1. (obsolete, rare) The process of being turned into a worm.
   • But yet the queſtion would be, whether Flyes are not immediately generated of putrefaction, and not thoſe of worms. For experience witneſſeth that there are a certain kinde of Flies which are begotten in the back of the Elm, Turpentine-tree, Wormwood, and ſo perchance in other herbs and plants...1658, Edward Topsel [i.e., Edward Topsell], “Of Flyes”, in The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents: […], London: […] E. Cotes, for G. Sawbridge […], T. Williams […], and T. Johnson […], →OCLC...
2. The state of being infested or consumed by worms.
   • The violent and voyeuristic imagery of the transi tombs, particularly in the horrific detailing of vermiculation, had a ghoulish counterpart in the 'grim coupling', the 'shaking of the sheets' of the danse macabre[…].2005, Susan Zimmerman, The Early Modern Corpse and Shakespeare’s Theatre, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, page 130
   • The sermon rehearses [John] Donne's phobic obsession with putrefaction, vermiculation, dissolution, and dispersal.2007, Terry G[rey] Sherwood, “‘Ego Videbo’: Donne and the Vocational Self”, in The Self in Early Modern Literature: For the Common Good (Medieval and Renaissance Literary Studies), Pittsbugh, Pa....
3. A pattern of irregular wavy lines resembling worms or their casts or tracks, found on the plumage of birds, used to decorate artworks and buildings, etc.
   • 74 ter A.—Scops gymnopodus. Gr. […] [F]eathers of the crown varied with blackish mesial streaks; the cross vermiculations being also rather coarser than on the back, all with concealed tawny buff bases, but very few with any indications of a subterminal buff bar, so that the general appearance of...1878 December, “Birds Occurring in India, Not Described in Jerdon or hitherto in ‘Stray Feathers’”, in Allan [Octavian] Hume, editor, Stray Feathers: A Journal of Ornithology for India and Its...
   • As a matter of fact its narrow ornate façade presented not a single quiet space that the eyes might rest on after a tiring attempt to follow and codify the arabesques, foliations, and intricate vermiculations of what some disrespectfully dubbed as "near-aissance."1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Afterglow”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 188
4. (dated) Peristalsis (“wave-like contraction of the digestive tract, resembling the movement of a worm”).
   • When a patient dies on the fourth, fifth or sixth day, the cause is traumatic peritonitis. Lack of food, sleep and rest, is exhausting, but the poisoning of ferments—exudates and effusions in the peritoneal cavity—determines the fatal issue. Knuckles of intestines become agglutinated and held...1890, Andrew Jackson Howe, “Ovariotomy”, in Operative Gynæcology, Cincinnati, Oh.: Robert Clarke & Co., →OCLC, section XI (Abdominotomy), pages 240–241
   • Deficiency of vital energy, characterized as "gastrointestinal weakness," is a functional decrease of digestive absorption; i.e., insufficient secretion of peptic fluid, loss of appetite due to decrease of gastrointestinal vermiculation, […]1991, International Journal of Oriental Medicine, volume 16, number 1, Long Beach, Calif.: OHAI Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 46