a. [ad. mod.L. *tūberculār-is, f. L. tūbercul-um TUBERCLE + -AR.]
1. Nat. Hist., etc. a. Of the nature or form of a tubercle; consisting of or constituting a tubercle. b. Having or covered with tubercles, tuberculate.
1817. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., xxii. (1818), II. 279. A subcutaneous larva belonging to the same order,… moves also by tubercular legs.
1860. Mayne, Expos. Lex., Tubercular, having tubercles; tubercled; tuberculate.
1877. Huxley, Anat. Inv. Anim., v. 231. The surface of the elytron is covered with … tubercular prominences.
1880. Günther, Fishes, 176. The young are smooth and the old have a tubercular skin.
2. Path. Of, pertaining to, caused or characterized by, or affected with tubercles.
1799–. [see b].
1864. H. Spencer, Princ. Biol., II. ii. 152. Tubercular matter, making its appearance at particular points, collects more and more round those points.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 47. Symptomatology—Nodular Leprosy—‘Tuberculated,’ ‘tubercular,’ ‘tuberculous,’ ‘nodular-dermal,’ ‘dermal,’ ‘cutaneous,’ ‘hypertrophic’ leprosy. Ibid. (1899), VIII. 805. Tubercular syphilide…. The term ‘tubercular’ used above refers solely to the gross infiltration of the skin causing raised nodules, and has … no relation to the tubercle bacillus.
b. spec. In reference to tuberculosis or the tubercle-bacillus; now technically replaced by TUBERCULOUS, q.v.
But as the discovery of the bacillus was made known only in 1882, the earlier examples of the word, though actually descriptive of results of the action of the bacillus, did not refer to it, but merely to the presence of tubercules.
1799. Med. Jrnl., II. 267. I have had … three cases of confirmed tubercular consumption.
1834. J. Forbes, Laennec’s Dis. Chest (ed. 4), 297. A portion of the pulmonary tissue … impregnated with grey tubercular matter.
1876. Bristowe, The. & Pract. Med. (1878), 68. A … tendency of organs to become tubercular.
1898. Westm. Gaz., 10 Nov., 8/2. He did not recommend … the removal of every tubercular cow from our dairies and cow-sheds.
Hence Tubercularize v., trans. to make tubercular; to infect with tubercles, spec. with tuberculosis, = TUBERCULIZE; whence Tubercularization; Tubercularly adv., by means of tubercles, in quot. spec. of tuberculosis.
1843. F. H. Ramadge, Curability of Consumption (1850), 55. The more this tissue is expanded, the less susceptibility does it retain of fresh tubercularization.
1889. Science, 13 Sept., 177/1. Spittoons … should never be emptied on dung-heaps, [or] on garden-soil (where they may tubercularize fowl).
1889. Pop. Sci. Monthly, Dec., 260. Having found a characteristic … bacillus in all tubercularly altered organs.
