Obs. [ad. F. ongle (cf. ONGLE) or L. ungula UNGULA.]

1

  1.  A claw, nail or hoof.

2

1480.  Caxton, Myrr., II. iv. 70. The gryffons wylde … whiche easily bere a man away … whan he may sease hym with his clawes and vngles. Ibid. (1491), Vitas Patr. (W. de W., 1495), I. xlviii. 93/2. The ungles or nayles of his fete and hondes weren merueyllously longe.

3

1566.  Adlington, Apuleius, 39. We fleade of the skinne … of the beare … and kept his ungles whole.

4

1657.  Tomlinson, Renou’s Disp., 457. It hath bifidous ungles like a Goat.

5

  2.  A hooked instrument of torture.

6

1483.  Caxton, Gold. Leg., 122/2. The tormentes of the pryson, the naylles, the vngles, the streynynge combes of yron.

7

  3.  A morbid growth in the eye; = UNGULA 2.

8

1590.  Barrough, Meth. Physick, I. xxxvi. (1596), 59. Somtime … another vngle ariseth in the other corner [of the eye].

9

  4.  Geom. = UNGULA 4.

10

1659.  Wallis, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), II. 508. He proceeds to a sum of squares to find the solid ungula, or the moment of that plane; and so to the sums of cubes, to find the moment of that ungle, and so on.

11