Pl. vestigia (also 7 vestigia’s). Now rare or Obs. [L.: see VESTIGE.] A vestige or trace; a mark or indication left by something destroyed, lost or no longer present.
1637. Nabbes, Microcosm., V., in Dodsley, O. Pl. (1744), V. 355. Repentance stays as the vestigium, Or mark impress’d, by which the past disease is found to have been.
1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies, vii. § 7. 50. Experience assureth vs, that after it [sc. light] is extinguished, it leaueth not the least vestigium behind it of hauing beene there.
1665. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (1677), 353. Upon better view I may discover his [Jerah’s] Vestigia near Malacca amongst his other Brethren.
1749. Phil. Trans., XLVI. 197. Ruinous Heaps and Vestigia nearly effaced by Length of Time.
b. Const. of.
1644. [H. Parker], Jus Populi, 54. Neither Nature nor History afford us any Vestigia of it.
1664. Evelyn, trans. Freart’s Archit., ii. 9. Of which there is to this day some Vestigia’s remaining.
1722. Wollaston, Relig. Nat., v. 92. So universally and utterly abolishd, that no part, no vestigium of them should remain.
1769. E. Bancroft, Guiana, 42. It is covered with bark of a light brown colour, variegated by the vestigia of the fallen off stamina of the leaves.
1771. Ann. Reg., II. 200/1. The vestigia of antiquity in a vicinage ought always to have great weight in determinations of this kind.
† c. spec. (See quot. 1704.) Obs.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, 22. The same Vestigia of Tendons … in each [fossil shell].
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., I. s.v., Vestigia of Tendons, are the little Hollows in the Shells of Fishes, which are formed on purpose for the fastening or rooting of the Tendons of their Muscles.
