Obs. [ad. F. ongle (cf. ONGLE) or L. ungula UNGULA.]
1. A claw, nail or hoof.
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.
1566. Adlington, Apuleius, 39. We fleade of the skinne of the beare and kept his ungles whole.
1657. Tomlinson, Renous Disp., 457. It hath bifidous ungles like a Goat.
2. A hooked instrument of torture.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 122/2. The tormentes of the pryson, the naylles, the vngles, the streynynge combes of yron.
3. A morbid growth in the eye; = UNGULA 2.
1590. Barrough, Meth. Physick, I. xxxvi. (1596), 59. Somtime another vngle ariseth in the other corner [of the eye].
4. Geom. = UNGULA 4.
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.