[ad. mod.L. vibratiuncula, dim. of L. vibrātio VIBRATION.] A minute or slight vibration. Cf. VIBRATION 3 c.
1748. Hartley, Observ. Man, I. i. § 2. 58. Diminutive Vibrations, which may also be called Vibratiuncles and Miniatures. Ibid., 101. Concerning the Derivation of ideal Vibratiuncles from sensory Vibrations.
1764. Reid, Inquiry, ii. § 3. Our sensations arise from vibrations and our ideas from vibratiuncles or miniature vibrations.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., IV. 156. Do you take the soul to be an Eolus’s harp, and all the fine things in it, to be vibratiuncles?
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., IV. 244. Their hearing or analogous sense is much nicer than ours, collecting the slightest vibratiuncle imparted by other insects, &c. to the air.
1857. Maurice, Mor. & Met. Philos., IV. viii. § 43. 478. Through what vibrations or vibratiuncles that conviction came to him we do not care to enquire.
So Vibratiunculation, a vibratiuncle.
1885. Coues, Dæmon of Darwin, 58. Darwin:… The rabble hooted, while homuncular vibratiunculations seized the church.
Socrates: Homuncular vibratiunculations?
Darwin: Those little creeps that little men mistake for true religion.
