[ad. L. vermiculāt-us, pa. pple. of vermiculārī: see next.
Several other senses given in various Dicts. are merely inferences from senses of the ppl. adj.]
Vermiculated; vermicular; sinuous. Chiefly fig.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., I. iv. § 5. It is the propertie of good and sound knowledge to putrifie and dissolue into a number of subtile, idle, vnholesome, and (as I may tearme them) vermiculate questions.
1658. Phillips, Vermiculate, worm-eaten.
1853. R. Choate, Discourse, etc., Daniel Webster, 27 July, 20. The moving of ‘vermiculate questions.’
1872. G. Macdonald, Wilf. Cumb., III. xvi. 214. My life seemed only a vermiculate one, a crawling about of half-thoughts-half-feelings through the corpse of a decaying existence.
1891. Cent. Dict., s.v., Vermiculate color-markings.
b. spec. in Ent. (See quot.)
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., IV. xlvi. 271. Vermiculate,… having tortuous excavations as if eaten by worms.
