Pl. stigmata or stigmas. See also STIGME. [a. L. stigma, a. Gr. στίγμα, mark made by a pointed instrument, brand, f. root *stig- in στίζειν (:—*stigy-) to prick, puncture: see STICK v.]
1. A mark made upon the skin by burning with a hot iron (rarely, by cutting or pricking), as a token of infamy or subjection; a brand. Also fig.
1596. Harington, Metam. Ajax, C 2 b. Circumcision … impressing a painefull stigma, or caracter in Gods peculiar people.
1645. Rutherford, Tryal & Tri. Faith (1845), 256. When a burning iron is put on the face of an evil-doer, it leaveth behind it a brand, or a stigma.
1778. Sk. Tabernacle Frames, 35. His flinty Front my Stigma shou’d retain.
1863. W. H. Russell, My Diary North & South, I. 246. The misery and cruelty of the system are established by the advertisements for runaway negroes, and by the description of the stigmata on their persons—whippings and brandings, scars and cuts.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul (1883), 471. He was branded … with the stigmata of the Lord Jesus [cf. Gal. vi. 17].
1891. Meredith, One of our Conq., i. He … thankfully received his runaway hat,… making light of the muddy stigmas imprinted by the pavement.
2. fig. A mark of disgrace or infamy; a sign of severe censure or condemnation, regarded as impressed on a person or thing; a ‘brand.’
a. 1619. Fotherby, Atheom., I. xvi. § 4 (1622), 168. They set a stigma, and a note vpon all that impugne it.
a. 1623. Buck, Rich. III., II. (1646), 63. All such slaughters [were] from thence call’d Bartelmies … in a perpetuall Stigma of that Butchery.
1777. Chatham, Sp. on Addr., 18 Nov. I … call upon your Lordships … to stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the public abhorrence.
1809. R. K. Porter, Trav. Sk. Russia & Sweden, 448. (Index) Houghton gallery, purchased by Catherine, and added to the collection at the hermitage; a stigma on this country.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xiv. III. 410. Moderate politicians … were unwilling to put a stigma on a man … distinguished both by his abilities and by his amiable qualities.
1882. J. H. Blunt. Ref. Ch. Eng., II. 172. Branded with the stigma of illegitimacy.
b. A distinguishing mark or characteristic (of a bad or objectionable kind); in Path. a sign of some specific disorder, as hysteria.
1859. Sala, Tw. round Clock (1861), 116. Among a family of blooming girls one who already wears the stigmata of old maidenhood.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 889. The stigmas of a morphinist are plausibility and disorderliness.
1907. W. C. Krauss, trans. E. Mendel’s Psychiatry, 84. Stigmata of Degeneration.
1916. A. Bennett, These Twain, 38. His incorrigible vulgarity of a small manufacturer who displays everywhere the stigmata of petty commerce.
3. pl. Marks resembling the wounds on the crucified body of Christ, said to have been supernaturally impressed on the bodies of certain saints and other devout persons.
Sometimes extended to other marks, as crosses, sacred names, etc., supposed to be supernaturally impressed.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., I. 24. St. Frances with his inuisible Stigmata.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 5 Aug. 1670. Monsr Monconys … was by no means satisfied with ye stigmata of those Nunns, because they were so shy of letting him scrape the letters, which were Jesus, Maria, Joseph.
1841. Earl Shrewsbury, Lett. to A. L. Phillipps, 6. Her confessor then told us that she had the stigmata on her hands, feet, and side, and that they occasionally emitted blood.
1880. Augusta T. Drane, St. Catherine of Siena, 269. During the lifetime of the Saint the stigmas remained invisible, but were not so after her death.
b. nonce-use. Ineffaceable stains of blood, supposed to remain on the floor of a room where a murder has been committed.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, Introd. If any Seneschal … had, by means of paint,… endeavoured to palm upon posterity supposititious stigmata,… the impostor would have chosen the Queen’s cabinet and the bedroom for the scene of his trick.
4. Path. A morbid spot, dot or point on the skin, esp. one that bleeds spontaneously.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., 128. The eye [of a wolf] applied extenuats the glaucoma and stigma’s.
1877. F. T. Roberts, Theory & Pract. Med. (ed. 3), I. 37. Cutaneous hæmorrhages assume the form of … stigmata, or minute points, petechiæ, or rounded spots, and vibices or lines.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., IV. 180. The distended capillaries on the cheek, the so-called ‘venous stigmata,’ which are attributable to alcoholic excess.
5. Zool. and Anat. a. Each of the respiratory openings or breathing-pores in insects and other invertebrates; a spiracle. Also applied to other small openings or pores, as that of the pneumatocyst in Hydrozoa. (Pl. usually stigmata.)
1747. Gentl. Mag., XVII. 122/1. Such as have need of respiration have tracheas and stigmas, which admit … as much air as is … needful for the insect.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist., VIII. 13. The stigmata, as they are called; or those holes on the sides of its body, through which the animal [sc. caterpillar] is supposed to breathe.
1832. Griffith, trans. Cuvier, XIV. 3, note. In the crickets … and the libellulæ, the sides of the metathorax are each provided with a stigma.
1861–2. Le Conte, Classif. Coleoptera N. Amer., I. Introd. p. xviii. The prothoracic breathing pore or stigma or spiracle.
1888. Rolleston & Jackson, Anim. Life, 103. Ascidian … The longitudinal vessels … inclose the stigmata or apertures which lead from the cavity of the pharynx to the peribranchial or atrial cavity.
b. The part of an ovisac or Graafian follicle where it ruptures to discharge the ovum.
1890. Coues, Ornithol., 327. Such rupture of the Graafian follicle (ovisac) … occurs along a line where the … blood-vessels … upon its surface appear to be wanting, called the stigma.
c. A natural spot or mark, as one formed by enlargement of a nervure on the fore-wings of certain insects (pterostigma), or the pigment, or eye-spot of an infusorian.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., III. 377.
1871. Staveley, Brit. Insects, 153. On the front margin of the fore-wing [of Hymenoptera] is a thickened spot or stigma.
1895. D. Sharp, Insects, I. 534. The Proctotrypidae … frequently have a pigmented spot or stigma on the front wings.
6. Bot. That part of the pistil in flowering plants that receives the pollen in impregnation, of very various form, situated either directly on the ovary (sessile) or at the summit (more rarely the side) of the style. Also applied to an analogous structure in cryptogams. (Pl. usually stigmas.)
1753. Chambers’ Cycl., Suppl., s.v. Seseli, The stigmata are obtuse.
1812. New Bot. Gard., I. 26. The styles acuminate, and the stigmas obtuse.
1862. Darwin, Contriv. Orchids fertilised, ix. (1877), 249. The viscid secretion of the stigmas of some Orchids.
1882. Vines, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 343. The female organs [in Cryptogams] … called archegonia, are, when … capable of being fertilised, flask-shaped bodies … prolonged into a long neck…. A row of cells … passes through the neck … and is continued as far as the cells which form the so-called ‘Stigma.’
7. In Ellis’s Stigmatic Geometry, A point whose movement in a certain plane is determined by that of another point (the index) in the same plane.
1863. [see STIGMATIC B. 4].
1864. Rep. Brit. Assoc., II. 2. If H and K be fixed stigmata. Ibid. M is the index and P the stigma of a stigmatic straight line.
