Only in plural. Now rare. Also 4–5 stygmate, 7 stigmatte, 7–9 stigmat. [pl. stigmates ad. L. stigmata pl. of STIGMA. Cf. F. stigmate.]
1. = STIGMA 3.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VIII. 525. She had the stygmates in her handes and feete and side.
1483. Caxton, Golden Leg., 314 b. Whan he hadde praid … Saynt fraunceis by his holy Signes and Stygmates he was … delyueryd of his payne.
1610. trans. Bonaventure’s Life St. Francis, xvi. 170. Graced and adorned with the Sacred Stigmattes of our Lord.
1686. Aglionby, Painting Illustr., 141. A Saint Francis in Fresco, who receives the Stigmats upon his Knees.
1839. A. L. Phillipps, trans. Montalembert’s St. Eliz. Hungary, p. xxvii. Those five bright and glorious stigmats, which in the high communication of love seraphic, he [St. Francis] had received from Him.
b. A mark as of a wound or puncture, a scar.
1861. J. H. Bennet, Shores of Mediterr., III. xv. (1875), 545. So severely bitten [by ants] that it took weeks to efface the stigmates.
† 2. A mark of correction or annotation in a book or manuscript. Obs.
1583. Fulke, Def., Answ. Pref. 73. The Bible printed at Antwerpe,… where the margents … be full of diuerse readings, obeliskes, asterisks, stigmates.
Hence Stigmated a., marked with the stigmata.
1867. Lady Herbert, Cradle L., 158. The joy … with which those crossed and stigmated hands [in the badge of the Franciscan monasteries] are welcomed by the traveller.
