a. and sb. [ad. med.L. stigmaticus (occurring in some MSS. of Cic. De Off. ii. 7. 25, where the true reading is stigmatias), f. L. stigmat-: see STIGMA and -IC. Fr. has stigmatique in sense 6 (Littré).
In early use sometimes accented sti·gmatic: cf. he·retic.]
A. adj.
1. Constituting or conveying a stigma; branding with infamy; ignominious; severely condemnatory.
1607. Heywood, Wom. Killed w. Kindn. (1617), C 4. Print in my face The most stigmaticke title of a villaine.
a. 1631. Donne, Ignat. Conclave (1634), 17. Hee … imprinted the names of Antichrist, Iudas, and other stigmatique markes vpon the Emperour.
1870. Swinburne, Ess. & Stud. (1875), 311. The application of any such stigmatic phrase to the work of Webster is absurd. Ibid. (1876), Note Eng. Repub., 10. Cruelty in Ireland, cruelty in Jamaica, cruelty in the plantation, cruelty in the jail, each of these in turn has naturally provoked the stigmatic brand of his approbation.
† 2. Marked with a ‘stigma’ or brand, branded.
In quot. 1602 app. humorously used in reference to an academic degree or distinction; cf. B. 1.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., I. iv. 437. Any of those Stigmatick maisters of arte, that abused vs in times past.
1628. Coke, On Litt., 158. If the Iuror bee … adiudged … to be branded, or to be stigmatique.
† 3. Marked with or having a deformity or blemish; deformed, ill-favored, ugly. Obs. (or rare arch.)
1597. Drayton, Heroical Ep., John to Matilda, 116. Hospitalls … for the crook’d, the hault, the stigmatick.
1601. Yarington, Two Lament. Trag., IV. vi. in Bullen, O. Pl., IV. 73. A loathsome toade, A one eyde Cyclops, a stigmaticke brat.
1609. Heywood, Brit. Troy, VIII. ix. 171. The Muse hath made him Stigmaticke and lame. Ibid. (1637), Dialogues, xvii. Annot. V 5. A Proverbe … Thersite fœdior, asperst upon any stigmatick, and crooked fellow.
1827. Lamb, Sir Jeffery Dunstan, in Hone’s Every-day Bk., II. 843. But some little deviation from the precise line of rectitude might have been winked at in so tortuous and stigmatic a frame.
4. Pertaining to or accompanying the stigmata (see STIGMA 3).
1871. G. E. Day, in Macm. Mag., April, 490. I shall now take up the history of the stigmatic bleedings, which … occur every Friday.
1882–3. Schaff, Encycl. Relig. Knowl., III. 2248. It may be said that ‘stigmatic neuropathy’ is a pathological condition … explicable by physical and mental conditions.
5. Path. Pertaining to or characterized by a stigma or stigmata (see STIGMA 4).
1898. Syd. Soc. Lex.
6. Zool. Pertaining to or having the nature of a stigma or breathing-pore.
1835. J. Duncan, Beetles (Nat. Libr.) 133. In order to bring the stigmatic openings in contact with the air, they [water-beetles] are obliged from time to time to repair to the surface.
1877. Huxley, Anat. Inv. Anim., vii. 435. The stigmatic openings are usually situated upon the side of the abdomen.
7. Bot. Pertaining to, constituting, or having the character of a stigma: see STIGMA 6. In quot. 1902, having a stigma, stigmatiferous.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 19. The pollen … shed upon the stigmatic surface.
1882. Vines, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 351. Hepaticæ…. The primary stigmatic cell divides into the five or six stigmatic cells of the neck.
1902. Oliver, trans. Kerner’s Nat. Hist. Plants, I. 741. If … the pollen should fall … to the ground, it would … be lost … and neither … winds nor … insects would be able to carry it … to the stigmatic flowers.
8. Geom. Pertaining or relating to the points called stigmata: see STIGMA 7, and B. 4 below.
1863. [see B. 4].
1875. T. Hill, True Order Studies, 53. What might be done with Hamilton’s Quaternions, and Ellis’s Stigmatic Geometry I have not examined.
9. [Back-formation from ASTIGMATIC by omission of the privative prefix: thus etymologically equivalent to anastigmatic, in which the prefix is repeated. Cf. STIGMAT.] Applied to a photographic lens or combination of lenses constructed so as to correct the astigmatic aberration.
1896. Brit. Jrnl. Photogr., 1 May, 280. The simplest form of a stigmatic lens consists of a glass plate with parallel plane sides.
1902. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 10), XXXI. 696/1. A … new type of anastigmatic objective … was brought out … by Messrs. Dallmeyer, under the name of ‘Stigmatic.’
1902. Westm. Gaz., 12 May, 4/2. The various models of stigmatic lenses with which the photographer is becoming somewhat bewildered…. In practical photography… good rapid rectilinear lens answers the purpose … and in nine cases out of ten the fine points of a stigmatic are wasted.
B. sb. [ellipt. use of the adj.]
† 1. A person branded as a criminal; a profligate, villain. Obs. (or rare arch.)
In quot. 1597 app. humorously used for a person marked with an academic distinction: cf. A. 2.
1597. Pilgr. Parnass., II. 217. An ould drousie Academicke, an old Stigmatick, an ould sober Dromeder.
1600. Sir J. Oldcastle, V. x. 112. Foule stigmatike, Thou venome of the country.
1642. Consid. Duties Prince & People, 10. He himselfe the reproach of Soveraignty, and an infamous stigmatique to all posterity.
1856. C. R. Kennedy, Demosthenes, III. 46. Some too that are slaves and stigmatics [Gr. μαστιγίας].
† 2. A person marked with some physical deformity or blemish. Obs.
1594. 1st Pt. Contention, H 2. Foule Stigmaticke [said to Richard ‘Crookback’].
1633. T. Adams, Comm. 2 Pet. i. 4. 80. Be not then married to the world, its a mishapen stigmaticke.
3. A person marked with the stigmata (see STIGMA 3).
1885. Times, 16 Dec., 5/2. He appeared at Paris … accompanied by his sister, Patrocinio, the famous stigmatic.
4. Geom. The aggregate of the curves traced by the points called stigmata (STIGMA 7); in pl. stigmatic geometry: see quot.
1863. A. J. Ellis, in Proc. Roy. Soc., XII. 442. The theory of stigmatics. An index point, supposed to move from any origin into every point on a plane, is accompanied by one or more satellite points, termed stigmata…. The locus of the stigmata, corresponding to each path of the index, forms a stigmatic curve. The aggregate of these curves constitutes a stigmatic.
1875. T. Hill, True Order Studies, 162. Elements of more modern inventions, quaternions, stigmatics, kinematics, etc.
5. Photogr. A stigmatic lens or objective.
1902. [see A. 9].
