a. [ad. L. larvāl-is pertaining to larvæ, or ghosts.]
† 1. (See quot.) Obs.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Larval, belonging to a night-spirit, goblin or masker, haggish, ghastly, dreadful.
2. Of or pertaining to a larva or grub; characteristic of a larva.
1848. in Maunder, Treas. Nat. Hist., 791.
1851–6. Woodward, Mollusca, iv. 21. The young [of mollusca] generally pass through one preparatory, or larval, stage.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., ii. (1878), 35. The immature and larval states of many of the lower animals.
1894. H. Drummond, Ascent Man, 352. The larval forms of the Star-fish or the Sea Urchin … are disguised past all recognition.
b. Of an animal: In the condition of a larva.
1864. Reader, IV. 669/1. The mode in which the larval flukes found in the molluscs re-enter the sheep.
1866. Dk. Argyll, Reign Law, iv. (ed. 4), 197. The eating of some larval parasite into the tissue of the wing.
3. Path. Of a disease: Latent, undeveloped. Also, ‘applied to certain diseases in which the skin of the face is disfigured as if covered by a mask’ (Mayne, Expos. Lex., 1855).
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., III. 172. Certain irritations in the various organs, such as characterize irregular or larval gout.
1898. P. Manson, Trop. Dis., vi. 105. The quinine test is generally conclusive in … the various larval forms of malaria. Ibid., viii. 159. Abortive or larval plague.
