The corpus record — Latin

vellico

vellico · v. a

to pluck

Generated live from the audited Latin corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

Pro L. Cornelio Balbo 1 · 1.47/10k
Mercator 1 · 1.17/10k
Mostellaria 1 · 1.04/10k
Satyrarum libri 1 · 0.7/10k
Elegiae 1 · 0.4/10k
Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales 3 · 0.25/10k
Noctes Atticae 1 · 0.09/10k

What it meant

vellĭco — Lewis & Short

vellĭco, āvi, ātum, 1, v. a.vello,

I to pluck, twitch, pinch, nip (syn. carpo).

I Lit.: cornix vulturios vellicat, Plaut. Most. 3, 2, 148: puer, quid fieret, interrogatus, a paedagogo se vellicari respondit, Quint. 6, 1, 41: saetas, Nemes. Ecl. 3, 32: vellicata blande auricula suscitavit, Paul. Nol. Ep. 36, 3.—

B Transf., of bees: nullius opus, to suck, Varr. R. R. 3, 16, 7.—

II Trop.

A To wake up, arouse by twitching: excitandus e somno et vellicandus est animus admonendusque, Sen. Ep. 20, 11; 63, 1.—

B To pluck or twitch in speaking, i. e. to twit, taunt, carp, rail at (cf. rodo): contemplent, conspiciant omnes, nutent, nectent, sibilent, vellicent, vocent, etc., Plaut. Merc. 2, 3, 73: more hominum invident, in conviviis rodunt, in circulis vellicant, maledico dente carpunt, Cic. Balb. 26, 57: quod vellicet absentem Demetrius, Hor. S. 1, 10, 79; cf.: nullum est tam plenum beneficium, quod non vellicare malignitas possit, belittle, Sen. Ben. 2, 28, 2: (puella) te vellicet, Prop. 2, 5, 8; Gell. 4, 15, 1.

In the wild

vellicabit Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales 7.63.1
vellicant Cicero, Pro L. Cornelio Balbo 57.p2
vellicet Propertius, Elegiae 2.5.8
vellicabit Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales 7.63.1
vellicant Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 4.15.1
vellicet Horace, Satyrarum libri 1.10.79

6 of 9 attestations shown.

Where it came from

No etymology authority pointer is recorded for this lemma yet — an honest gap, not an omission.

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Latin text and lemmatization derived from the Perseus Digital Library (canonical-latinLit), CC BY-SA 4.0. Lewis & Short (public domain) via Perseus. This derived data is shared under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.